From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 52400
Date: 2008-02-06
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick McCallister" <gabaroo6958@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts
> Punk eek is a nice catch phrase to describe adaptation
> to niches or new environments but it's pretty
> unpredictable. Note that English has diverged much
> more than Spanish in much less time, despite similar
> histories of colonial expansion. Icelandic, despite
> isolation and a small population that suffered
> bottlenecks during crises such as famine, is very
> conservative, while other island populations have
> innovative languages.
> So all we're geting from the articles is that
> languages tend to drift in isolation --e.g. islands
> and valleys surrounded by rugged mountains, and that
> languages adapt to new circumstances. But observation
> and common sense pointed that out long ago.
>
>
> --- mkelkar2003 <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:
>
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/319/5863/588
> >
> >
> http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-
> > the-evolution-of-languages/
> >
> > http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bowern/Mypapers/Punceq.pdf
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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