Re: IE & linguistic complexity

This question of language simplification fascinates me and as usual I
present more questions than answers.
While I can see that the theory that contact between speakers of
similar tongues such as Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse would lead to the
simplification of English, why did the simplification process
continue long after Old Norse ceased to be spoken in England? And if
we were to take Iberia as an example, surely Latin was too far
removed from the Celtic, Basque and later, Arabic languages for this
process of simplification to take place? If it were then to be argued
that the languages did not have to be 'close' then why do we still
find languages which retain a great deal of their complexity, but
whose speakers must have had a great deal of contact with their
neighbours; examples that spring to mind are the Baltic languages
whose speakers would have had contact with Germanic, Slavonic and
even non-IE speakers such as Finnish. Perhaps Slavonic also falls
into this catagory and I would have expected this simplification
process to have taken place at the fringes of the Slavonic world
where there would have been interaction with Iranian, and later,
Greek, Germanic et al speakers. However Bulgarian appears to be
pretty unique in displaying any signs of this process.
If anyone could throw any light on these matters I would be very
grateful.

Regards

David James

--- In cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I think a time depth of 11 or 12 millennia is implausible. If the
expansion and primary splits of IE had taken place that early,
"Indoeuropia" would now look rather like N America, with many small
families of vague affiliations, whose shared traits of genetic and
areal origin would be difficult to disentangle. We would have things
like widespread regional vocabulary and typological similarities, but
reconstructing a protolanguage or a neatly articulated family tree
would prove a hopeless task. The pattern that actually occurs
suggests a more recent expansion, with convergence effects well
visible but not strong enough to obscure genetic relationships.
>
> Hypothesis 3 gives rise to a number of questions (I ignore those
related to linguistic palaeontology, like the horse-and-cart
argument, as too easy to counter). First, what gave just one
linguistic community of hunter-gatherers so much material advantage
over other such groups that it should have spread over vast areas of
Eurasia apparently uncontested? (After all the region in question, as
opposed e.g. to Australia, has alway had a number of entry points.)
Second, by what miracle did the descendants of those pioneers manage
to maintain their linguistic identity with the advent of Neolithic
farming -- not just in isolated pockets, like the speakers of Basque,
but *everywhere*?
>
> Hypothesis 2 avoids such pitfalls and that's why I prefer it,
though unlike Renfrew I see no good reason to move PIE all the way
back to Anatolia. A Danubian homeland with the Linear Pottery
colonists providing the human material for the "population wave"
would be just fine, as far as I'm concerned. The fact that PIE was a
language of considerable grammatical complexity would square best
with its original position as a member of a rather old and well-
established dialectal network in "equilibrium mode", as Dixon ("The
Rise and Fall of Languages") puts it, disturbed and fragmented but
not completely destroyed in the transition to the early Neolithic.
The subsequent simplification of the daughter languages would have
resulted from spread and contact effects, as the author (Jonathan
Adams, I presume) correctly remarks.
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Marc Verhaegen
> To: cybalist@egroups.com
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 6:10 PM
> Subject: [tied] IE & linguistic complexity
>
>
> From another list (MT). Any comments?
>
> Marc
>
> ++++++++++++
>
> Just sending you a rough draft of a brief paper on Indo-European
> languages. I wonder, could you post this on the mothertongue
listserver for
> me, and ask people to e-mail me at jonathan.adams@... if they
> have comments? Thanks, Jonathan
>
>
>
> INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES: GRAMMATICAL COMPLEXITY AND ITS POSSIBLE
> IMPLICATIONS FOR THEIR MODE OF SPREAD.
>
> The question of how Indo-European family of languages came to
occupy a
> broad swathe of Europe and western Asia has long attracted
discussion. The
> actual range that the Indo-European family of languages had
achieved by
> early historical times is uncertain, but they were certainly
present in
> central and northern Europe, southeastern Europe, Anatolia and
parts of the
> Near and Middle East. Celtic, Germanic and Slavic migrations may
have
> provided a relatively late overlay of Indo European languages in
parts of
> western and northern Europe, though without written records of the
> pre-existing languages it is impossible to say what widespread
before then.
> Migrations and conquest may likewise have carried Sanskrit and
Tocharian
> further eastwards shortly before early historical
> times. While acknowledging that these identifiable movements of
cultures
> and peoples contributed to the later spread of the Indo-European
languages,
> scholars have long discussed the events before this time which
might have
> led to this group being present widely through central, northern,
> south-eastern Europe and the Near and Middle East.
>
> Hypotheses which have been put forward to explain how the Indo-
European
> language family became widespread include 1) spread by warlike
cultures
> conquering relatively passive farming populations (Gimbutas), 2)
initial
> spread of a 'population wave' of agriculturalists spreading across
lands
> only inhabited previously by hunter-gatherers (Renfrew), 3)
recolonization
> of uninhabited by a wave of hunter gatherers following extreme
depopulating
> climate events such as the Younger Dryas (12,000-11,000 ya) (Adams
& Otte),
> 4) a trading language which became of widespread usage in Europe
during
> prehistory, among ethnically diverse groups of hunter-gatherers or
early
> farmers (Sherratt).
>
> A notable feature of all the early forms of the Indo-European
languages is
> their grammatical compexity. Latin, Sanskrit, ancient Welsh and
Irish,
> ancient Greek, old church Slavonic, ancient Persian, and early
Anglo-Saxon
> are all far more complex in terms of the range of verb and noun
inflections
> than their modern-day descendant languages. This change has been in
spite
> of the increasing spread of literacy and institutions of learning
which
> might be expected to have preserved and promoted this original
complexity
> against any broader trend towards simplification. Similar trends
towards
> simplification have been found in other widespread languages, for
example
> Arabic (Semitic Language Family) and Mandarin (Sino-Tibetan Language
> Family). The cause of this widespread trend towards simplification
of
> widespread languages has generally been agreed to be the influence
of trade
> and outside cultural influences, including both invasion and
external
> conquest. Non-native speakers of languages find grammatical
complexity
> confusing and are likely to develop their own simplified versions of
> grammar. This might in turn influence the native speakers who live
among
> them, or trade with them frequently. The process of simplification
might be
> aided when closely similar languages (e.g. early Saxon and early
Norweigan,
> in England) are being used by those living in close proximity;
emphasis is
> placed on common word-stems, leaving behind the inflections.
However, this
> requires an initial splitting and divergence followed by renewed
contact,
> which seems unlikely to have occurred so systematically throughout
the
> ranges of so many different language groups; the predominant
pattern of
> influence from the history of the past 2000 years seems to have been
> contact with outsiders speaking completely different languages,
even from
> different language families.
>
> What might the implications of this be for our interpretation of the
> prehistoric origin of Indo-European languages? The complexity that
is found
> in all Indo-European language branches recorded in their earliest
forms,
> and in every case to some extent lost in the descendant languages,
shows
> that it is a delicate feature, easily destroyed. It also suggests
that
> complexity was a primary feature of these languages; a
characteristic of
> the common ancestral language which was maintained as they spread
out
> across Europe and western Asia. For this complexity to have been
maintained
> at least initially at this common high level (to the point where it
> survived almost intact in every branch of the language family up
until less
> than 2000 years ago) there must have been much more limited contact
with
> non-native speakers than was the case during the last 1500-2000
years.
>
> This observation make help us to sort between the various hypotheses
> concerning the spread of Indo-European languages. Hypothesis 4, of
> Sherratt, that the Indo-European languages were essentially trading
> languages, seems unlikely in this context. If they were spread
through
> trading, complexity would not have been a hallmark of these
languages. It
> is notable that English, which is more than any other a language of
trade
> and of medieval trading origin, is the most grammatically simple of
all
> Indo-European languages.
>
> Similarly, the view that Indo-European languages were spread by a
warrior
> aristocracy (Hypothesis 1) and imposed on a conquered population
does not
> seem particularly tenable. A characteristic effect of conquest by a
small
> elite has been that creoles and pidgen languages develop among the
native
> population, losing a large part of the original complexity of the
language.
> Thus if these warriors did indeed spread the languages by conquest,
they
> must have killed most of the previous inhabitants of the areas they
> conquered. Thus, the context of spread of these languages would
appear to
> be rather different from that envisaged by Gimbutas.
>
> Expansion of a large farming population into a relative 'vacuum'
inhabited
> only by sparse populations of hunter-gatherers seems another
plausible
> mechanism by which grammatical complexity could be maintained. The
> continuous influence of contact with hunter-gatherers, who existed
in very
> small numbers, would likely be small compared to the overwhelming
> population 'wave' of farmers.
>
> The hypothesis (2) that the initial spread of Indo-European
languages
> involved hunter-gatherers expanding into previously uninhabited
terrain
> (following the dramatic climate shifts known to have occurred
repeatedly
> during the last 20,000 years) also seems tenable.
>
> Thus, consideration of the changing complexity of Indo-European
languages
> may shed some light on this subject. The 'trading language'
mechanism of
> Sherratt seems unlikely to have been important in spreading these
languages
> in prehistory. If warriors spread the languages they did so not
through
> conquest but through genocide. Alternatively, or in addition, the
> Indo-European languages may have been spread by a large 'farming
wave' of
> population expanding into territory only sparsely inhabited by
> hunter-gatherers, or a 'sparse wave' of hunter gatherers expanding
into
> uninhabited landscapes following large sudden climate shifts.