--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:> So, he almost has to
postulate that "a small immigrant elite population can
> encourage widespread language shift among numerically dominant
natives..."
A variant of this is the Ehret-model of ideology-transfer, used by
Witzel, together with chariots and horses moving in, apparently
holding the 'substratum tribals' in awe. "We now tend to speak of
transfers of ideologies, subsistence systems,language, and
spiritual culture from one group to the other (Ehret 1988) as often
as movements of people. Such processes do not necessarily involve
large-scale migrations, although actual physical movement and
intermarriage are not excluded."
http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0702/ejvs0702c.txt [Note. Ehret
used his model in the African context: Ehret, C. Language change and
the material correlates of language and ethnic shift. Antiquity 62,
1988, 564-74.]