From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 60617
Date: 2008-10-06
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
>
>> > Why should everything change ?
>>
>> Doesn't really matter: the evidence clearly shows that
>> languages *do* change over time.
>
> Still, Arnaud's "why" deserves an answer. Languages change primarily
> because of the nature of cultural transmission from generation to
> generation. The kind of cultural replication which underlies language
> acquisition is inherently imperfect, and copying errors inevitably
> accumulate over time.
=============
That's part of the issue,
but there are stabilizing factors, like the fact anatomy does not change so
fast,
and some sounds can be easily produced with maximum contrast.
These sounds are likely not to change so much.
Copying may be imperfect but there are "natural" emending factors.
And you have not proved that Copying imperfections exceed the variability of
the idiolects of a language.
I'm not sure a change is a replication problem.
Arnaud
===========
>
>> > Do I have to prove that something can be stable ?
>>
>> Yes, if you want to claim that a significant number of words
>> have remained stable for 7000 years at a stretch.
>
> There are quite a few languages whose _documented_ history stretches
> back two millennia or so, and not a single spoken language that has
> resisted a significant amount of change for so long.
> Piotr
==========
What does significant mean ?
This is a bit vague, M. Gasiorowski.
Arnaud
==========