Re: another language reconstruction question

Mat McVeagh scripsit:

> There is no reason to suppose there
> were anything like that many languages in the ancient world. Instead, on
> account of the factors I mentioned in my other reply, there would have been
> little language variation and slow language change. So however many
> beginnings there were to human languages, one or more, it was not many, and
> the breaking up of all those cultures into smaller units has taken all this
> time.
I find that difficult to believe.  I suspect that once the world was
fully populated, the number of languages was as large as it was ever
going to be.  It is only forces like long-range trade, modern education,
and high-tech settlement (as in Northern China, Australia, the Americas)
that spread single languages over large areas.

The rule in most parts of the Third World is that speech is noticeably different
in the next village and has become unintelligible after you have
traveled 100 km.

--
My confusion is rapidly waxing          John Cowan
For XML Schema's too taxing:            jcowan@reutershealth.com
    I'd use DTDs                        http://www.reutershealth.com
    If they had local trees --          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
I think I best switch to RELAX NG.