Re: Language and Complexity (was Inuit)

Hakan asked

> >It was a surprise to learn that a primitive people, living among

ice, >cold

> >and darkness in one of Earth's harshest climates, did not have >a
> >"primitive" language. Before I found it, I believed that complex,
> > >form-rich grammars only belonged to ancient civilisations

(Sanskrit in

> > >India etc.).

Glen replied

> The perceived complexity of a language has nothing to do with the

culture

> who uses it. There is no language more "complex" than the other.

Check out

> the Ket of Siberia and their polysynthetic language. Also check out

Abkhaz

> of the NorthWest Caucasian group (ie: i-u-z-d-aa-s@-r-ga-n "I made

them

> bring it here for you" is a beautiful example of the crazy mixed-up

way in

> which verbs can be conjugated.). Burushaski is another exotic and

totally

> unprimitive language in Kashmir and Jammu state (north of India) -

they use

> 4 genders and conjugate a verb according to the subject, object and

the

> experiencer of the action, mixing both the ergative and accusative

case

> together into a confusing melange of insanity that would make any
> "civilised" person's head explode. It also has very irregular

plurals to

> nouns that need to be specially memorized in order to fully cause

migraine

> soreness. Cantonese uses some six or more tones to distinguish

monosyllabic

> words apart, particularly high-falling/high-level, low-falling,

low-rising,

> high-rising, mid-level and low-level. Etc, etc, etc...

I know that in the case of Australian Aboriginal languages also there
is no "simplicity" in language because they were hunter gatherers.
In
fact, there have been interesting studies of the Mathematical theory
of "groups" suing AL's in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.

Given the complexity of early languages, is there any argument that
languages are becoming grammatically more simple with technological
progress.... Rather than primitive = simple, maybe we have a modern =
simple, with reductions in complexity as culture contact increases
between language groups.

Be interested in people's thoughts here.

Regards

John