Re: Language change among immortals

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Roger Mills <rfmilly@M...> wrote:
> IIRC, Robert Blust considers taboo-substitution as one of the main
> reasons why some of the Melanesian languages (Solomon Is., New
> Caledonia et al.) are so divergent, vis-a-vis reconstructed
> Austronesian vocab.  Of course those islands were settled early on
> by "Papuan" groups and languages, the ANs came later. Taboo-
> substitution is also mentioned in some of the old Dutch works on
> various tribal groups within Indonesia-- the Bare'e of central
> Sulawesi are the best known to me (the language is now called Poso).
Now that I've found the reference, what you've said backs them up.

ObConLang:
The original poster's immortals might also have a lot of taboo-
substitution if they have a lot of polygamy, or a lot of divorce and
re-marriage, if, as the quote below indicates is common in Melanesia,
they have a taboo against the names of relatives-in-law.

To fulfil my promise to Jim Henry,
I will quote five paragraphs from chapter five of the following book.

"The Atlas of Languages, Revised Edition:
The Origin and Development of Languages Throughout the World"
Consultant Editors Bernard Comrie, Stephen Matthews, and Maria
Polinsky
Facts On File Inc.
part of Facts On File Library of Language and Literature
ISBN 0-8160-5123-2
Copyright 2003, 1996 by Quarto, Inc.
LoC # P107.A87 2003

Chapter 5
"Pacific"
by Maria Polinsky and Geoffrey Smith
section: "Melanesia"
I quote:
|"For the linguist, the most remarkable feature of Melanesia is the
|extreme diversity of its languages.  Vanuatu has a population of
|little over 150,000, but boasts 105 identifiable languages, making
|it the world's most linguistically diverse country, with an average
|of one language for every 1,500 speakers.  The Solomon Islands have
|similarly small language groups:  nearly 90 languages are spoken by
|a population of about 300,000.  According to the Summer Institute of
|Linguistics' latest survey, in Papua New Guinea there are over 860
|languages in a population of around 4 million.  Many of these are
|still undescribed or incompletely known to outsiders, so for this
|reason alone care must be taken when making universal
|generalizations about human language.  For example, SOV languages
|nearly always have case systems, but the Haruai language in Papua
|New Guinea does not.  Phonologically, som Chimbu languages of the
|New Guinea Highlands have the highly unusual "lateral velar
|affricate", which can be thought of as a kind of scraped "g" sound
|made with the side of the tongue, while the Rotokas language of the
|North Solomons appears to lack distinct nasal phonemes, once thought
|to be universal."
|
|"Taking Papua New Guinea as an example, how do we account for this
|incredible diversity?  Why should an area with only one-tenth of one
|percent of the world's population harbor almost one-sixth of the
|world's languages?  The fragmentation is frequently explained in
|terms of the tribal groups' isolation by the mountainous, rugged
|terrain and by constant warfare, but for a number of reasons this
|cannot be the full story."
|
|"To begin with, the largest language group in Papua New Guinea is
|Enga, with approximately 160,000 Speakers.  Yet the Engans live in
|the Central Highlands in some of the most rugged and remote areas in
|the country, or indeed anywhere on Earth.  On the other hand, the
|region of greatest linguistic diversity is probably Sepik, near the
|mainland north coast, where it is not unusual for villages to speak
|very different languages despite close proximity and easy social
|contact.  The idea that before Europeans' arrival, the tribal groups
|were unaware of outsiders, has been greatly exaggerated.
|Anthropologists and archeologists have clearly demonstrated that
|complex and extensive trading networks had already existed."
|
|"In many of these societies, great pride is taken in small cultural
|differences.  It seems there is a tendency to emphasize linguistic
|peculiarities for the sake of identity, and over the millennia this
|has doubtless generated difference.  The phenomenon of word taboo
|may also have been a contributing factor:  in-laws, for example, are
|commonly forbidden to utter one another's names; similarly, those of
|the recently deceased may be taboo.  Since personal names can also
|be ordinary words, alternatives may be substituted, creating an
|accelerated rate of change."
|
|"The late Don Laycock, who made a life-long study of Papua New
|Guinean languages, suggested that perhaps the problem should be
|approached from another direction.  Instead of wondering why
|Melanesia has so many languages, maybe we should ask why the rest of
|the world has so few, or how some languages become established over
|such wide areas.  Most of the conditions required to establish a
|dominant language --- centralized political power, standardization,
|a writing system, and a literary tradition --- were absent in
|Melanesia, and thus could not allow any one language to become pre-
|eminent."

Tom H.C. in MI