Elite dominance theory vs. Practicality

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

Just a quick note.

What Asia Minor and Pannonia had in common before moving towards a single
language was the presence of an unusually large number of different
languages.  I heard someone roll off 22 languages that reportedly were spoken
in the general area of modern day Hungary during the first millennium AD.
And of course the area of modern day Turkey may well have had similar
diversity before Ottoman Turkish became the "universal" language.

In both cases, both languages may have solved a very practical problem.  A
third language is a good compromise, especially when it represents the new
administrative powers that would affect one's official if not private life.
In essence, this would have provided a neutral bridge over previous language
barriers between a large number of different language elements - permitting a
new and better channel of communications.  Overcoming such barriers would
probably have been commercially if not socially advantageous to those
speakers who adopted the new second languages and to the next generations
that made them their first languages.

Regards,
Steve Long