Re: [T] -> [f] (was: Chinese Dialect Question)

On Monday, October 6, 2003, at 03:01 , Mark J. Reed wrote:

> MJR = me
> RB = Ray Brown
>
> MJR> Oh, sure, but that's a historical change.  Seeing it happening
> MJR> "in real time" in one's own language is different.
>
> RB> How so?  Doesn't the fact that it can be seen to be happening
> RB> confirm what was suspected about the situation in the past?
> RB> Doesn't one give greater credence to the other?
>
> I think we're talking past each other again. :)  I firmly believe
> in linguistic evolution.
That's why I said "How so?" It was meant as a genuine question (no sarcasm,
  irony or whatever).
I had no doubt you believe in linguistic evolution and I guessed there was
some misunderstanding.

[snip]

> etc.  However, an actual change in the quality of a phoneme seems more
> drastic - I know it is constantly happening, really, but it's the sort
> of thing that I tend to imagine taking place over vast historical time
> periods, kind of like biological evolution, not something I
> expect to see around me.
Linguistic evolution happens a lot quicker than biological evolution. Just
chart the changes from, say, 13th cent. English to the present or 13th
cent French till the present.  Some changes, it is true, take their time -
others seem to happen quickly.  The 'great vowel shift' of English seems
to have occurred within a couple generatiosn in the south of England
during Tudor times - and that was a greater change than [T] --> [f].

It seems that changes speed up when society is in flux, changing from old
patterns to  something new.  Indeed, in view of the tremendous upheavals
of the 20th cent., one might have expected greater changes; I think it was
only the fact that standards had been established and mass media (like
printing, radio and films and, later in the century, TV) that acted as a
brake on more drastic changes.

As for [T] --> [f], it appears to have already been underway in the 19th
century and now in the 21st cent. it's still, apparently, only a regional
phenomenon. I suspect established spelling, education and the growing use
of an English Koine as a global auxiliary language will prevent the change
ever becoming complete.

>
> -Mark
>
> (*) I really hate the X-SAMPA trailing-\ diacritic.
Can't say I like it either. I reluctantly use X-SAMPA because, at least it'
s a standard one can refer to.  But i look forward to the time when ASCII
has passed away and Unicode prevails  :)

Ray
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