language shift ( it was Celts & Cimmerians)

People, IMHO a language dies out and it does not became abandoned. You
can not abandon a thing which is within you, that is a fact. The use of
the word "abandon" here appears just as metaphor and nothing more. But
since here are such analysts which are comparing language with trousers
one has to take a closer view to their examples. Examples for
"abandoning" a language have been given from modern times as follow:

- aborigine tribes in New World which are using English instead of their
old language
- emigrants from all the part of the world which entering in a foreign
society, they "abandon" their language too.
- it was showed here that English has it's progressive and very massive
influence on the actual languages.
- trough analogy with the actual situation in the New World, there is
made up the explanation for the language shift of the old population's
language conquered by Roman Empire to the actually Romance.

Is there the need to speak about "the job" of a language? I guess there
isn't. The job of any language -short said- is to make the comunication
posible. Now to the mentioned points:

1) Aborigine tribes which are using English instead of their own
language:

the question is why are these people letting their language to die out?
They don't. Their language is not anymore making the job a language is
destined for . I don't think it is necessary on this list to show how
these aborigines in New World are becoming less as number, got
overwhelmed, separated themselves, tried to integrated themselves in the
new society, having a less contact with each other, the new generations
having a progressive loosing of their culture , not being strong enough
for building an enclave in the big mass of new comers for creating the
necessary nucleus to keep their language, etc. I guess we don't need
these explanations since they are well-known. The mss media which exists
nowadays is too not to under-estimate when we talk about a new language
reaching even the very inaccessible area of a region.

2) Emigrants entering a new society:

-here cannot be a discussion about "how does a language die out" with
this kind a persons. Here is the same principal argument for the dead of
a language: the language does not make the job destined for ; the old
language of the new comer is not used, not learned, it will die out.

3) Influence of English on actual languages

this is a fact which cannot be denied . What kind of influence is this?
Is a lexical influence and nothing more. Just loaning words which
describe things which have been not know before. The examples given by
Glen in the computer field are the best examples for a such influence.
Everyone has to agree that no language here loan any flexion particles
from English, neither these language will make derivatives of an loaned
English word " a la English"; the words are imported and accommodated
with the specific of the language where the word has been imported. A
lexical influence does not mean a language shift. Even if there are 50%
of imported words which are used in another language, this is still no
language shift.

From 1) and 2) there are some questions which we have to take a look at.
In the New World, there are by now 500 years beginning with the time the
new comers "conquered" the aborigines and these aborigines live together
with the new comers. The society and the possibilities of the new comers
is by far more able to impose it's language as ever the Roman Empire
should have been able to do. Thus, one has to ask as follow:

- any "new language" appeared in the geographical space where these
aborigines are living?
- have been there traced morphological, phonological and structural
changes which happened to the language of the aborigines due the
influence by the language of the new comers?

The answers for such questions will handle with provable facts and not
with more or less based suppositions and due these answers one should
understand the long time effects which appear due the influences of
languages on each other.As for beginning of the discussion about
languages being abandoned and such stuff, I guess any commentary should
be useless by now.


Alex