The chain-of-dialects

Mark Odegard writes:
A continuous dialect network' is usually spoken of in the literature as
a
chain-of-dialects. The Romance chain-of-dialects is the classic one, but
you find it also in Germanic and Slavic, as well as places such as
Africa
and India. The phenomenon is easy enough to explain. You follow the
road from village-to-village, noting the linguistic change as you go.
The
villages close to each other usually speak what is essentially an
identical dialect, but as you move forward, changes are noted, and the
further you move, the greater the cumulative changes become, when
compared to your starting point. At a certain point, the chain of
dialects
differentiate sufficiently for those at the extremes to be called
separate
languages.

Gerry: YES! So using this "chain of dialects" idea, it is possible
that the same language can be alike as well as different from its
neighbor depending on the geographic location of this neighbor.
QUESTION: What happened with Estonian?

Mark Odegard:
If you move up the east coast of Spain from Gibralter, you encounter a
number of Iberian dialects (as well as Standard Castilian). By the time
you reach Barcelona, you encounter a different language (Catalan).
When you cross the border into France and head towards Narbonne,
besides encountering standard French (which is indeed a separate
language) you also encounter Occitan -- which is not that different from
Catalan. This chain-of-dialects continues right around the Mediterranean
coast of France until Italy, where Occitan is gone but Italic Romance
dialects are encountered.

Now. The Romance chain-of-dialects has been greatly weakened in
modern times because of universal education in the standard language
of the respective countries, and more recently, by greatly increased
mobility and the ubiquity of television. Nonetheless, it is still there.

Gerry: I have another question. Universal education and television
have weakened this chain-of-dialects. Will the internet manage to
"dissolve" it? And if that is the case, what will replace the chain?


Mark: The progressively greater differences you encounter in a
chain-of-dialects demonstrates how distinct languages emerge.
Primarily, the process is one of gradual differentiation, usually
propelled
by changes in phonology. In other cases, and usually less strongly, the
influence from another language is felt.

Mark:The rate of differentiation, the time-depth necessary for such
changes to
manifest themselves varies greatly. If a language is left alone by
itself,
and is restrained to a modest geographic range, it can maintain itself
seemingly indefinitely with relatively minimal changes, as with
Lithuanian. In other cases, immense changes can occur in a relatively
short period: Late Old English is separated from early Modern English by
only 350 years.

Mark Odegard.
& nbsp;
& nbsp;

Gerry: Thanks Mark. Your explanation was most informative and VERY
clear. BTW, who are nbsp & nbsp?