On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:08:02 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<
gpiotr@...> wrote:
>01-10-03 20:38, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:
>
>> When I pursued this question on another list, I also got the
>> knee-jerk reaction of 'racism' from some listmembers, the others
>> being reluctant to express their opinions for fear of the same smear
>> tactics.
>>
>> But the simple facts are that NO ONE has yet been able to
>> satisfactorily explain why sound systems change.
>
>Are you suggesting that "racial" factors have something to do with
>language change? What's the evidence? Languages and their subsystems
>change because they have all the necessary properties of evolving
>systems. A language is a population of potential replicators (idiolects)
>with built-in diversity. A complex code of communication is transmitted
>from one generation of speakers to the next; the nature of the process
>of language acquisition guarantees imperfect replication. The size of
>the population is limited, so variants are involved in competition, etc.
>Change is _inevitable_ in such circumstances, just like Darwinian
>evolution in the living world, because there is nothing to guarantee
>long-term stability. A living language that resists all change would be
>a _real_ miracle. Studies of sound change in progress are a busy field
>nowadays. I dare say we understand the general mechanism of change
>rather well, and I see no reason to build an aura of mystery around it.
I have been re-reading some of Stephen Jay Gould's "Natural History" books
the last couple of days, and this reminded me of an allusion he makes to a
claim by someone-or-other that the Slavic languages are consonant-rich
because in the cold climate it would be disadvantageous to keep your mouth
open for too long, while Polynesian languages are vowel-rich because of the
mild cimate and healthy air on the isles, stimulating opening the mouth
more often... I've looked through the 1500 pages or so that I've been
reading, but I can't find the exact quote, nor what the source was.
Speaking of Gould, Darwinism, and language, I was reading an interesting
passage that I _can_ find ("Eight Little Piggies/Full of Hot Air", p.
111ff), and which struck me as something to keep in mind when doing
historical linguistics as well.
It's about a mistake made by Darwin in the "Origin". Darwin points out
that swim bladders in fishes are homologous to lungs in terrestrial
vertebrates, and from this fact draws the --erroneous-- conclusion that
lungs evolved out of swim bladders ("I can, indeed, hardly doubt that all
vertebrate anaimals having true lungs have descended by ordinary generation
from an ancient prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a
floating apparatus or swim bladder").
Gould continues: "Many readers will be puzzled at this point, as I have
perplexed several generations of students by presenting the argument in
this form. What can be wrong with Darwin's claim? The two organs are
homologous, right? Right. Terrestrial vertebrates evolved from fishes,
right? Yes again. So lungs must have developed from swim bladders, right?
Wrong, dead wrong. Swim bladders evolved from lungs."
The problem is that we're accustomed to view the evolution of (higher)
vertebrates as follows:
Fishes --> Amphibians --> Reptiles --> Mammals, in other words: swim
bladder -> lungs.
In fact, the development was:
"Common Ancestor" |----- 1 Teleosts and allied fishes (swim bladder)
(lungs) |----- 2 Lung fishes and Terrestrial vertebrates (lungs)
|----- 3 Sharks (neither lungs not swim bladder)
In group (1), lungs evolved to swim bladders, in group (3) lungs were lost,
while group (2) remained unchanged (as far as lungs are concerned, at
least).
I'm sure it's not hard to think about analogous (homologous?) examples in
the field of historical linguistics.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...