Someone wrote:-
> I'm simply trying to pull out of the atmosphere some reasons why a
> language becomes (or remains) an isolate.
I have heard of a way that an isolate could arise quickly. In some
climates, it may have happened, very rarely, that some children old
enough to walk but not old enough to talk, get isolated and survive
to adulthood on natural food from the jungle, and then start
breeding. They invent a language among themselves without outside
contact.
Another possibility, I suppose, is that a deaf-and-dumb couple are
ejected from the tribe and raise a large family in isolation, and
then as ditto.
Someone wrote:-
> Guess another answer could be "aliens from outer space".
(1) Infiltrate Area 51 and get from there a textbook of the language
of the Greys. Then compare it with Burushaski etc????? :-) :-) :-)
(2) Among "alien" languages that have been invented by human sci-fi
authors, I know of only one word from them that has got into general
usage in a real natural language: "grok", used sometimes as English
slang for "understand", started in a fictional Martian language.