Re: THEORY: Sound changes in literate societies

Quoting wayne chevrier <wachevrier@...>:

> "Karapcik, Mike" nevesht:
> >
> > According to the book "Applied Linguistics", which I read a year
> > ago, the changes are motivated by the middle class.
>
> Maybe in some instances, but historically most cultures haven't had a
> middle class, yet their languages changed.
Right.  In some societies, the very notion of a Middle Class didn't
even exist, either because social stratification was almost nonexistent,
or because mercantile society (which historically leads to the presence
of a middle class) didn't exist.  In other words, the author of this
book on applied linguistics was propounding a theory of language
change that accounts only for a small percentage of the human
experience, and is in any case dubious for reasons I have already
pointed out in other posts.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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