Re: Measuring language change

Pablo F. wrote: Are there any scientific ways to measure and/or predict
language change? I'd like to know, mostly in order to make dialects with a
reasonable rate of change. All I've heard is that glotochronology <sp?>
estimates that a language loses X percent of its lexicon every N years, or
something of the sort."

Glottochronology is exceedingly inaccurate, and it has lost whatever favour
it originally entertained (with linguists, anyway: crackpots interviewed on
the Discovery Channel LOVE it). The problem is that language change can
vary greatly. A language that remained isolated by geographical barriers
and relatively politically stable could 'age' significantly slower than a
language in a societal flux. It isn't like carbon dating, for example. And
there seems to be no way to predict language change. The problem is that
linguistics is a hard science but language is an art. Language isn't like
genes; humans can sit down and conlang or adopt a new language or take
features they like from one language and 'import' them into their own. This
is why we have areal features like retroflexion in South Asia, clicks in
Africa, tones in Africa and non-Western Asia ... and the like.

That's what makes language fun for me anyway

BB
Brian Betty, Front Desk
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
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