Re: CONLANG Digest - 21 Feb 2004 to 22 Feb 2004 (#2004-52)

Doug Dee wrote:

>In a message dated 2/24/2004 4:54:05 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>herodote92@YAHOO.COM writes:
>
>>If I may ask: isn't it remarkable that languages
>>presented as examples for ergativity (Basque, Eskimo,
>>Georgian, Dyirbal...) nearly always seem to be used in
>>very far-off, hidden and hardly reachable places,
>>seeming to indicate that these people had little
>>contact with other ones ?
>
>I'm not sure that the Basques in the Pyrenees are any less reachable than
the
>speakers of accusative languages in the Alps.  And they seem less isolated
>than the Icelanders.
>
>There are many ergative languages in Australia, and many accusative ones.
It
>would be hard to claim any of them are isolated, since they all have
>neighbors, and Australia isn't particularly mountainous, so they're not
cut off from
>each other.
>
>I think there's a good selection of accusative languages in the Caucasus as
>well.
>
>Hindi has "some ergative morphology" (per Dixon) and cannot be considered
>isolated or hard to reach.
--------
Perhaps there's a better way to put Phillipe's question: Isn't it curious
that most ergative languages (with the exception of Hindi) appear to occur
in cultures that have historically shown extreme cultural homogeneity and
cultural isolation, whether through physical inaccessibility (e.g., the
Dagestanian languages of the Caucausus, Tonganese, Burushaski, etc.), or a
strong sense of cultural identity, lack of dispersion from their homeland
or adherence to a traditional way of life (e.g., Basque, Georgian, the
Paleo-Siberian languages)?  After all, look at the Australian languages,
most of which are traditionally ergative but have begun showing
rapid "breakdown" into accusative patterning in the speech of the last two
or three generations as Western cultural contact undermines their
traditional societies (as noted in some of Lakoff's writings where he
quotes Dixon).

--John Quijada

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