Re: Lamarckian language
George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Sat, 09 Oct 1999 16:00:13 -0400
mortongr@flash.net wrote:
>
> At 12:18 AM 10/09/1999 EDT, PHSEELY@aol.com wrote:
> >The history of the breakup of Latin shows the Romance languages developing
> >in about 1000 years; so, this sounds right to me.
> >
> >Question: What sources do you know of for objectively estimating the time
> >needed for one language to change into two languages? Also, does language
> >change into two languages always involve separation of population groups
> into
> >geographically separated areas?
>
> Most of this is simply from history and the texts left by various peoples,
> from which it can be shown that about 1000 years is enough to split
> languages. And yes, the splits almost always involve the separation of
> various peoples into different political groups which produces less
> commerce and social interchange.
An application of this: II Kg.18:26 indicates that by 700 B.C. Hebrew had diverged
significantly from the "Imperial Aramaic" which was the lingua franca of the Near East
at the time. This suggests a date before 1700 B.C. for the emigration of Abram & Sarai
from Haran. Of course on this basis such an estimate can be only a rough approximation
but it's consistent with other estimates.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/