Re: Language change among immortals

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From what I've seen, the purpose of language evolution is to speed
thought or speech.  For example, AOLspeak is faster to type than real
English.

For an immortal population, you wouldn't need to speed thought--more
like slowing it so you don't get bored.  That's possibly why the Ents
had such a slow language.

This would leave evolution to incorporate new concepts.  Elves are
traditionally great philosophers, so they probably have to come up
with new words for new concepts.

On 11/21/05, 轡虫 <snapping.dragon@...> wrote:
> This is a question that has been bothering me for a while. I may have
> asked the conlangs comm on LJ about it a while ago, but either I
> didn't get an answer or I didn't understand/forgot it.
>
> How would a population being immortal, or at least very long-lived,
> affect the way that their language evolves?
>
> Tolkien's languages are the only conlangs I can think of at the moment
> that are spoken by a very long-lived race, but I haven't studied them
> at all. I should probably do that sometime. =)
>
> --
> kutsuwamushi
> (Watch reply-to, gmail user!)
>

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