Renfrew's Celtic Scenario

[Robert Whiting]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

> Perhaps more importantly, inscriptions appearing in Latin, on the US
> Dollar, on religious objects and at the end of e-mail messages (but
> not on ogham sticks) show NO CHANGE IN THE LANGUAGE at all - 1800
> years later!

Yes, and that's how you can tell that it's a dead language.  Living
languages change; dead ones don't (at least not to the same extext or in
the same way).  I know that you don't believe that Latin was a dead
language in the Middle Ages because so many people spoke it and used it
for communication.  But it had no native speakers and therefore it was a
dead language.

Here is a little assignment for you.  Your assignment, should you choose
to accept it, it to find some text written in English in 1000 AD and then
find the same text written in English in 2000 AD.  See if you notice any
difference.  Next find some text written in French in 1000 AD (or any
other living language of your choice that was recorded both then and now)
and then find the same text written in the same language in 2000 AD.
Then find some text written in Latin in 1000 AD and the same text written
in Latin in 2000 AD.  I suggest the Lord's Prayer for the text sample
since it was extensively recorded in various languages over a long period
and later examples are not required to be archaizing copies since the text
is a translation of a fixed text and the translator is trying to render
the original in his own language.  I will even give you a leg up and tell
you that you can find a ca. 1000 AD English version of the text in H.H.
Hock, _Principles of Historical Linguistics_ (1986), p. 3.

See if you can see any difference between the treatment of the text in the
English and French (or whatever) versions and the Latin version.  Then try
to generalize your observations and suggest some explanations for the
differences.  Come back and report when you have finished.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi