Re: NATLANGS: Difthongization across Europa

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Tristan McLeay skrev:
>  > On 19/02/08 21:48:23, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>>>I guess the risk that NAmE splits
>  >> into mutually incomprehensible languages is a baehd
>  >> thing, but the alternative is to kill it!
>  >
>  > A bad thing? As a conlanger, surely not! It's just the
>  > Real World conlanging for a change.
>
> My remark was tungincheek! And as I said the alternative to
> letting language change run its course is to kill the
> language (cf. my sig!)
...
>    "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
>    à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
>    ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
>    c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)
I hope you don't assume everyone can read French on a predominately
English-language forum.[*] (I don't know French, but from your hint as
to the topic and just random knowledge of Romance languages one picks up
when you hang around here, I suppose "It's in vain the cries of (some
sort of literature) to stop language (from changing); ... . The day it
stops changing is the day it's dead". But without your hint I could not
easily have attempted that, and your comment "but the alternative is to
kill it" struck me as acceptance   (like the way no-one is pleased when
they say the only certainties are dead and taxes).

[*] Possibly it's hard for Europeans to realise how hard it is to
effectively learn a language when the only exposure to foreign languages
people teach are about forty minutes twice a week in classes conducted
mostly in English; the languages we could actually easily go off and
expose ourselves to (mainly Chinese, Cantonese and Vietnamese) of course
are not taught in school unless your parents speak them (or at least
that was the case when I was in school).

--
Tristan.

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