> If one were to use the "maximum diversity"
> argument, the oldest primary branches and the most diversified ST
> languages are found not so much in China itself but "in and near"
>Assam
> and the eastern Himalayas, perhaps including parts of Burma and
>Sichuan.
All this literature on Chinese history has given me a new angle as
to why some conquerors' languages survive: In the case of Chinese it
prevailed because it was a written language, as such superior for
administration. Therefore, since IE prevailed against its now
substrate languages, it must have had a similar advantage, and I
think it was that the PIE speakers had a grammatical/poetic/epical
method (one should keep in mind that the origin of the rules of
poetry is rules of mnemotechnics). Chinese, although it was a
written language, did not have a phonological theory until one was
imported from India.
The upshoot of this is of course that the area of the 'superior'
language gets 'smoothed' because of its socially enforced standards.
Diversity becomes a sign of loser status.
Torsten