Indo European Origins (language mutability, efficiency)
Michael Motyka
mmotyka at lsil.com
Tue Jan 14 14:48:29 PST 2003
"Major Variola (ret)" <mv at cdc.gov> wrote :
>On Ken's
>> > All contemporary natural languages, like all biological species, are
>> > the same age.
>
>At first this parsed because I was thinking in the sense of
>"all organisms have ancestries going back the same amount of
>time". (And humans aren't the 'goal' of evolution.) Not sure
>if non-bioheads got this. Anyway others' complaints clarified
>"speciation" --if you are willing to identify a bifurcation point
>then you *can* age a species or any other fork --Linux 2.4,
>Latin, Corvettes, etc.
>
I guess bifurcation points and speciation seem very clear because of the aliasing
problems in our sampling methods. The speciation exists but is prolly ( probably ) often
fuzzier than we think. Almost everyone would say that an American Bison and a Scot's
Highland are two different species but they can hybridize. Maybe we non-Biologists
measure the distance between "species" inaccurately.
>At 10:36 AM 1/14/03 -0800, Michael Motyka wrote:
>>An interesting question that arises out of the observation that some
>languages
>>are relatively static and others - like English - have been changing
>steadily. Is
>>there any connection between the evolution behavior of the language and
>the
>>vitality of the culture? I think so.
>
>"Vitality" is fuzzy.
>
Choose your measure : population? power? innovation? environmental impact? rate of
change?
The US seems more vital by some measures. Less so by others. More dangerous to
the species by others.
>Clearly America admitting everyone (cf Japanese) helps.
>Clearly not having an Acadamie Anglaise helps (cf surrender-monkeys).
>Electronic media probably help.
>
>There's an even more interesting technical evolution:
>English is also undergoing "entropic refinement" or Hamming-like coding,
>as speakers prune or invent for efficiency.
>
>As it is, it takes fewer letters in English to say something than every
>other common language.
>Look at the instruction manuals for your domestic appliances.
>
That is interesting.
>Forms (memory requirements) get simpler ---can you believe that the
>surrender-monkeys retain
>a gender-bit for every friggin object-- and phonetically simpler too.
>The sounds get more orthogonal.
>Also the influence of immigrants and children and lazy native speakers
>who can't tell a "v" from a "w" or "d" from "th",
>or remember the 150 irregular verbs.
>
>Some of this is natural. I've adopted the southern "y'all" because
>English has no plural third person and this
>ambiguity is annoying when you're emailing to several people. Note also
>the efficiency of the contraction.
>You hear "data" used as singular enough times, you say fuck it, I'll
>have a beer, or several beer [sic]. Talk to
>Eastern Europeans long enough, you'll start dropping your articles,
>though you may miss the FEC/prompting
>and flash back to Boris & Natasha cartoons...
>
Is the evolution towards a more efficient language an active or passive process? Is it
driven by an internal inclination towards expansion, freeing up system resources as it
were, or is it a coping mechanism for sensory overload?
Mike
More information about the cypherpunks-legacy
mailing list