30-01-04 16:10, elmeras2000 wrote:
> If anyone knows of a well-documented case of an absolute
> innovation that saw its first light and immediately exploded to
> encompass an entire language within a generation or two it would be
> very interesting to hear about it.
Phonological innovations often have a long gestation period, when
subphonemic variation appears and prepares the ground for a sweeping
reorganisation. But once the process starts to gather momentum, it can
be really fast. For example, the loss of final and preconsonantal /r/ in
British English was first observed in 1718; by the 1770's English
orthoepists were deploring the viral spread of the change (while some
denied it!). A few decades later /r/-dropping was not only socially
acceptable but had become normative in most of England (speading also to
Australian, NZ and some varieties of US English). The critical period
during which the change made dramatic progress was perhaps half a
century long -- ca. 1760-1810. It wasn't a minor change, since it
resulted in a wholesale reanalysis of the vowel systems of the affected
(non-rhotic) accents.
Piotr