Re: [tied] 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?

Yes, I think the distinction you make between understandable &
ununderstandable languages is very important. Mixing of understandable
languages ("dialects") leads to simplification of inflection IMO. This is
seen in English (Anglon, Saxon, Frisian, Norse), Dutch & Scandinavian, much
more than in High German. I don't know enough of Scandinavian to know
whether it follows this "rule" (trade? Vikings?), but it's clear in Dutch:
the standard language moved from Bruges (West-Flemish, a dialect originally
close to English) to Antwerp to Amsterdam (large emigration of influential
people from Brabant to Holland in the 16th century). The effects may be
visible only after centuries, eg, Hollandic "jij" (Engl. "you") has always
been used in the spoken language, but in the beginning of this century
written Dutch still used Brabantic "gij".

>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

IMO, it's not at the fringes, but the central dialects (that undergo most
influences from neighbouring dialects) that lose most inflection, eg,
English & Hollandic. I think contacts between mutually understandable
"dialects" (large-scale mixings after migrations?) are important for these
"simplification" processes.

Marc