LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 18 September 2006 * Volume 03
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (01) [E]

>From: Paul Finlow-Bates [wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk]
>Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.17 (02) [E]
>
>There is a curious snippet about this in David Crystal's "Cambridge Encyclopedia
>of Language" (Guild Publishing, London 1988). On page 33 he reproduces a couple
>of intriguing little maps from a paper by L.F. Brosnahan on the work of
>geneticist C.D. Darlington in the 1940s. One map shows the distribution in
>Europe of areas where the dental fricative occurs today, is recorded in the past,
>and seems never to have existed. The second map shows the frequency of the "O"
>blood-group gene. The correlation is remarkable, with areas of less than 60% "O"
>never having the sound. Even more remarkable, these boundaries cutting right
>across the main Germanic/Romance linguistic boundaries.
>
>No explanation is attempted, and Crystal comments that this and other
>genetic/language links have never been followed up, possibly because it is
>"accepted" that laguage is socially controlled.
>
I think at this point I have to stand up and say "Where's the science in
that?"

You always need to remember that correlations without explanations don't
mean anything.

Take a simple example: a study of schoolchildren may show a remarkable
correlation between shoe size and arithmetical ability. The mere
observation that there is a correlation doesn't mean the two variables
are connected. Rather, there's a third variable, the age of the child,
that happens to be correlated to both. You can now theorise that
children get bigger in general with age and hence the correlation of
shoe size to age. Theorising about arithmetical ability and age is a
little more complex, but eventually you have two separate theories and
the original correlation is shown to be genuine, but not meaningful in
any direct way.

Similarly, genetics and linguistics. Don't imagine that because two
aspects of these show a correlation means that they're related. You need
to have a solid and testable theory explaining why we see a correlation.

Even given that, however, I find the above unconvincing: 'areas of less
than 60% "O" never having the sound'. What does this mean? Suppose you
plotted areas of less than 70%, wouldn't the isohaem diverge from the
isogloss? Perhaps you could adjust the percentage until it shows a
correlation with some other interesting linguistic or social variable,
and get a scientific paper out of that? So how do we know it wasn't
fiddled in the first place (though perhaps in all innocence)?

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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