Re: extinction of a list

--- In nostratic@yahoogroups.com, "Geraldine Reinhardt" <waluk@...>
wrote:

> Yo, Marco,
>
> How difficult it is for me to remember back to dialects spoken
> in the place of my birth. Usually regional maps include

Haverhillian

> as New England, Eastern (one of the most distinctive of all the
> American dialects. R's are often dropped, but an extra R is added
> to words that end with a vowel. A is pronounced AH so that we get
> "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" and "Pepperidge Fahm
> remembuhs.").

Hello, dear Gerry!

I've read somewhere that native dialect of J. F. Kennedy has the same
identical features. He used to pronounce /idea/ and similar words
with a final /-r/, and to have a plenty of /-ah-/.

> Haverhill, like similar areas both large and small, related to

other cities

> in the Merrimack Valley such as Lawrence and Lowell, both of which
> had accents that were distinctive from that of Haverhill. In order

to

> assess accent similarities and differences, one needs first of all

to draw

> an ethnic map. Then upon this map one needs to allow for social
> distinction as well as economic differences.
>
> Within Haverhill itself, we have a regional distribution of accents
> reflecting both social and economic factors as well as urban and
> rural (rural being farmers who raised a few dairy cows and chickens
> for their livelihood) as well as ethnicity. The urban

Haverhillians

> were a gain differentiated
> by whether or not they lived in the "old" area of town or had moved
> to Upper Main Street, an area that stretched from Kenoza Lake to
> Bradley's Brook. This "new area" of town was again subdivided by
> occupation, economics and ethnicity.

I already guessed that you are from US seeing you amazed by my
description of Europe barren population. I can guess from your
surname that you are of German origin. How this origin is remote
and how it still infuences your speech? Do you remember something
of the language of your ancestors or is it alien to you like
Enochian?

> To study accents in America, especially in New England is an
> unproductive task since the more micro one tries to become, the
> end result is that even amongst identical twins, no two sisters
> use the same phonetic soundcard.

It is quite interesting, but apparently you speak
of "microdifferences". All kind of English spoken in your valley are
mutually understandable or there is some difficulty of communication?

> Language origins like origins of species must be viewed on both
> a micro as well as a macro level to include all social, religious,
> economic, ethnic and even ecological niches.
>
> Gerry
>

As for me, language and species origins are all but clear and
understandable. We know almost nothing about this topic, and all
models of macro-families are still very feeble and uncapable to go
back to the ultimate source of human language.
So reconstruct precise paths in the history of language change
is terribly hard and all this despite of Glen's opinion.
Glen uses Occam's Razor in a terrible way. Once Einstein said that
things are the most possible easy, but not easier than possible, and
I agree.

Best wishes

Marco