Re: Dialect Continuums (was Real or Spurious Root Matches?)

--- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tgpedersen
> > Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 12:46 PM
> > To: cybalist@...
> > Old Subject: [tied] Re: Real or Spurious Root Matches? (was OE
> *picga)
>
> > --- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...>
> > wrote:
> > > --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > > > That's why I imagined it must have loaned at a time
> > > > when AfroAsiatic roamed a lush Sahara for there to have been

a

> > > > unbroken linguistic connection between coast and interior
> (yuck -
> > > is
> > > > this English?).
> > >
> > > Drought refugees from a still lush Sahara?
> >
> > I imagined the temporal sequence something like this:
> > 1. lush
> > 2. drought
> >
> 3. external contact
> 4. continuing internal contact?
>

1. lush
2. external contact
3. drought
4. extensive movement, and/or extinction
5. no contact

>
> > > Your notion of an 'unbroken linguistic connection' is one I'd
> hoped
> > > to see explored for early Indo-European. I'd asked what breaks
> up
> > a
> > > dialect continuum, ...
>
> > Here's my answer: War. It causes shibboleths to arise (or they

may

> > have formed in the process of polarisation leading up to war).
> >
> > >I
> > > had wondered if there were some size limit beyond which a
> continuum
> > > would break up, like Roche's limit for satellites. I'm not

sure

> > >how
> > > well words would diffuse within a continuum.
>
> > Think of Northern India.
>
> For break-up or diffusion? I've since done some modelling which
> suggests that size alone is not a problem for maintaining a dialect
> continuum.
>
> Northern India's had its wars. What have they done to break up the
> dialect continuum?

One side won. Except the last conflict. Hindustani > Urdu, Hindi

>
> Of course, if a war leads to large population movements, that might
> break up a dialect continuum by removing the intervening dialects.
> Has it ever done so other than by replacing them by a different
> language?

Yes, in Scandinavia, as I explained in the Shibboleth thing. People
in Copenhagen understand Swedish with considerable difficulty; the
Swedes, particularly outside of Scania, claim they have an even
harder time understanding us.
Also, I'm told, Croatian and Serbian are drifting (rather: being
drifted) apart.

>Also, I recall reading that a dialect continuum between
> Spanish and Portuguese has formed in South America.

Where there's no longer war.

>
> > >Think of Romance or
> > > Scandinavian for hard evidence.
> > >
> > I have some Scandinavian data in
> >
> > http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html
>
> I'm not so sure shibboleths break up dialect continuums. I have a
> vague recollection that RUKI is slightly different in Baltic and
> Slavonic, but that some Eastern Lithuanian dialects followed the
> Slavonic pattern.

I think you have just proved that Baltic and Slavonic have become one
language. Try telling them that in Vilnius.

>
> > BTW: For several hundred years the now North French coast from

the

> > present Belgian border to Boulogne and beyond was Germanic-
> speaking.
> > That means from Hengist and Horsa on there was an unbroken
> > AngloSaxon - North German dialect continuum.
>

Which you can tell from toponyms eg. many cognates of -ing-.

> So what broke it? The Danish invasions?

French influence. French conquests (Louis XIV). Still about 10% of
the population in Flandres speak Flemish dialects. Also I'd imagine
(but you would know that better) that William and his successor
discouraged cross-channel trafic for other than his own gang.

>The Scandinavian colonies
> in the Faeroes and Iceland are not part of the Scandinavian
> continuum, so I am not sure that the sea is not a barrier.

They did form a continuum with some Norwegian dialects, I'm told.
Faroese was revived in the 19th century with a written language, or
it would have gone the way of Orkney Norn.

>
> Richard.