Re: another language reconstruction question

>From: John Cowan <jcowan@...>
>
>Mat McVeagh scripsit:
>
> >  You make it sound
> > as tho languages are Darwinian rivals. Are they? Is there some way that
>some
> > languages or language families are more 'fit' to survive than others?
>
>Not specifically, but languages allow access to culture and technology,
>so it often pays to learn the language of the dominant people, even
>if they aren't your actual rulers.  See the popularity of English today;
>certainly neither the British nor the American empire has ever had a
>*policy* of language change (excepting for American Indians).
I'd certainly agree with that. But then linking that to your earlier
comment:

"I would think that the overwhelming majority of the world's population 6-10
thousand years ago spoke languages that are either gone without a trace,
dead but recorded, or moribund today, mostly the first category.  Mammals
and dinosaurs arose at about the same time, but only with the destruction of
the dinos did the mammals get a chance to radiate into the many niches they
occupy today."

- it seems that you think there were language families or branches that
flourished millennia ago, and were replaced wholesale by other ones because
they were the official languages of powerful groups who were overthrown by
other groups who, becoming powerful themselves, created new 'dominant
languages' which other peoples learnt in order to get in with them. Would
that be a fair inference?

A related question: do you really think ancient peoples started speaking the
languages of more powerful peoples, replacing their own as mother tongue, in
order to get access to culture and technology? (Even when they weren't being
ruled by them?)

Mat


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