Re: Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts

Punk eek is a nice catch phrase to describe adaptation
to niches or new environments but it's pretty
unpredictable. Note that English has diverged much
more than Spanish in much less time, despite similar
histories of colonial expansion. Icelandic, despite
isolation and a small population that suffered
bottlenecks during crises such as famine, is very
conservative, while other island populations have
innovative languages.
So all we're geting from the articles is that
languages tend to drift in isolation --e.g. islands
and valleys surrounded by rugged mountains, and that
languages adapt to new circumstances. But observation
and common sense pointed that out long ago.


--- mkelkar2003 <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:

>

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/319/5863/588

>
>

http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-

> the-evolution-of-languages/
>
> http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bowern/Mypapers/Punceq.pdf
>
>

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