Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...> wrote:
> I think you exagerate the association between social change and=
linguistic
> change. The example I always give is the one of the Russian Revolutions=
in
> 1917. The social change that happened during that revolution was the mo=
st
> important one any country ever beared during History. The country, whic=
h
> was very rural and religious, became in less than 10 years industrial a=
nd
> atheist. No other social change in any other country can be comparable.=
> BUT, the Russian language didn't change at all during the revolution. W=
ell,
> at least, its rate of change didn't change during the revolution. The
> social change didn't accelerate the linguistic change.
> =
> So I think that even if there is a connection between social an=
d
> linguistic change, it is not as simple as it may seem. Language is a so=
cial
> institution, it's true, but with its own inertia and its own laws, and =
if
> major social changes sometimes result major linguistic changes, it is n=
ot
> always true, and one must be very careful before using such arguments.
Actually, I Vaguely Remember Reading Somewhere (so take this with a grain=
of
salt) that enough vocabulary and so on has been lost in the past 70-80 ye=
ars
that, say, Dostoyevsky is pretty inaccessible to today's Russian youth. =
But
then, I suppose a lot of hundred year old American and English novelists =
are
inaccessible to today's American and English youth, so what I read may ha=
ve
been irrelevant Capitalist pig-dog propaganda. (It was quite a long time=
ago
that I read it.)
Ed
---------------------------------------------------------
Edward Heil .......................... edwardheil@usa.net
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