[tied] Re: Estimated timeframe of albanian s->sh transformation

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 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.
>

That's interesting, since the American War of Independence was in
that period, and since the Americans (at least in the standard (low,
Dutch-influenced?) dialect that spread from New York) didn't
drop /r/'s. Any indication that this had become a English/American
shibboleth already then?

Torsten