Re: One language or two?
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, September 6, 2003, 18:00 |
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At 10:12 5.9.2003 -0700, JS Bangs wrote:
>My guess is that they speak several languages, or have a dialect continuum
>covering the area where they live. Unless the community is very small,
>it's unlikely that all of the synchronic dialects will still be mutually
>intelligible.
>
>As for the oral tradition--like Padraic (I think), there would almost
>certainly be a difference in register between the poetic and everyday
>language. If the poetic corpus was relatively open and actively used, the
>two languages would probably remain mutually intelligible, but there would
>be significant differences.
This is essentially what did happen in IndoAryan. Sanskrit ànd
some more "evolved" forms of language were at different times
codified and preserved as "high" literary registers, while in
daily use a dialect continuum evolved and continued to change,
with sporadic episodes of koineization.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
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