Re: Age of langs (was Tempus)

David Peterson wrote:
>       If I were to go back in time, say, 3,000 years, and I spoke
> modern English, there would be no one on Earth who understood me, not
> even a little bit.  So, if you want to say that someone who could
> neither speak nor understand modern English is someone who speaks and
> understands it, be my guest.  I still think this whole argument is
> utterly ridiculous.
But the point is, where you draw the line between languages is
arbitrary.  The Anglo-Saxons couldn't understand Modern English either,
yet their speech is considered a type of English.  Yes, some languages
you could go further back in time and still be understood, altho the
question of sound changes can complicate matters.  However, I don't see
that it makes sense to say that a language that has changed more slowly
is somehow "older".  Okay, so language A could be understood 1500 years
ago, while language B couldn't.  One could say that language A is older,
but that terminology doesn't make sense to me.  More conservative, yes,
but they're both much older than 1500 years old.  They're tens of
thousands of years old!  Using the analogy of a human being again, the
way I am now is very different from how I was when I was 10, and people
who knew me then might not recognize me now.  Yet, I and that past-self
are the same individual.

--
Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon
A nation without a language is a nation without a heart - Welsh proverb
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