OT: Evolution of dialects (was Re: Tirelat and related dialects)

Hallo!

On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:05:22 -0400, Alex Fink wrote:

> Well, as I see it there're two different things going on here, and one of
> them IME runs the other way than you've suggested:
>
> - per the usual dictum in historical and socio- linguistics, the more
> culturally central / active / populated areas of the speech community are
> those most likely to breed new innovations.  If rural or outlying varieties
> are markedly different it's more likely that they're _conservative_, that
> they haven't drifted the way everyone else has.  (Of course, that says
> nothing about the extra-fictional direction of the design process; but you
> did refer to "the original[ly]".)
>
> - your "'higher' sides of life" are the areas where speakers are going to
> have more social motivation to adhere to a formal standard language, if such
> a thing exists, and this does retard innovations.
Indeed.  Rural dialects tend to be more conservative than
urban ones, as Alex has said; however, if there is something
like a standard language, it is the upper classes that tend
to adhere most closely to it, and standard varieties are often
oriented at a corpus of "classical" texts which are often in
an older version of the language.  Thus, the urban upper
classes may be just as conservative in their language habits
as the countryside dwellers but for different reasons, or
their language is conservative in other regards than the
rural dialects.

I am working with these assumptions in working out the
dialectal divisions of Old Albic.  There is a standard
variety (which is by far the most developed so far) which is
used primarily by the urban upper classes, and based on the
classical texts, and there are several regional dialects
(for which there are as for now just lists of sound changes
starting from Proto-Albic).  These dialects are in some
respects more innovative than Classical Old Albic, but the
northern dialects are more conservative than the southern ones
(the most prosperous and densely populated part of the country
is in the south).

Dialects, of course, are what daughter languages are starting
at.  I am planning to evolve a number of daughter languages
from them.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf

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