Re: Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts

This is pretty specious --there are Australian and
Greenland Inuit languages that are said to have very
rapid word replacement. The articles Kelkar included
listed Polynesian languages with varying levels of
replacement. Native Australians, Inuits and
pre-European Polynesians were the most hmogenous
people on the planet --much more so than the Japanese
who have Jomon, Yayoi, Korean and Chinese ancestry and
whose language has changed immensely over the
centuries and has great diversity.


--- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

> Icelandic conservation is due to ethnic continuity.
>
> Compare Japanese.
>
>
> Patrick
>
> ----- 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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