Re: Age of langs (was Tempus)
| From: | Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, March 10, 2001, 10:51 |
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Cian Ross wrote:
>On 03/08/2001 at 3:45 PM Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >
> >But when dealing with contemporary languages, there's little meaning
>saying
> >that one is older than another.
>
>Would it be reasonable to speak of languages (at least in the same family)
>as being more-derived versus less-derived?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "more-derived" and "less-derived".
If you're refering to how much langs have changed from their common
ancestor, I think the answer is still no. Modern Icelandic is more
CONSERVATIVE than modern Norwegian (either variant), but that doesn't make
Icelandic OLDER than Norwegian.
Andreas
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