Summary Details
| Query: |
Language extinction, Neolithic Revolution
|
|
| Author: | John Kingston | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Historical Linguistics
Anthropological Linguistics |
|
| Summary: |
Regarding query: http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1851.html#1
Colleagues, A few weeks ago, I posted to the list asking whether anyone knew the grounds on which Elizabeth Kolbert claimed in her recent piece in the New Yorker (6 June 2005, 'Last Words: A Language Dies,') that a large number of languages had gone extinct when the Neolithic revolution occurred. This was the first time I heard such an assertion, and I was surprised at it. I received very informative and somewhat varied replies from: Mikael Parkvall David Drewelow Joseph F. Foster Martin Paviour-Smith Claire Bowern Harald Hammarstr��m Scott DeLancey Robert Orr for which I am very grateful. I���ve summarized those replies here. A number of people pointed me to a recent book by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine ���Vanishing Voices,��� published by Oxford University Press in 2000. (Nettle has another, only slightly less recent book ���Linguistic Diversity,��� 1999, Oxford University Press that apparently makes the same point.) David Crystal���s recent book ���Language Death��� (2000, Cambridge University Press) was also mentioned, as well as John McWhorter's ���The Power of Babel,��� (2002, W.H. Freeman, pp 258ff). A number of people also referred to Renfrew���s proposal that the spread of Indo-European languages by the Neolithic Revolution caused the nearly complete extinction of languages spoken previously in Europe ��� Basque being the sole survivor. Peter Bellwood���s work was also cited as arguing that language families have expanded with the development of agriculture and animal husbandry by their speakers. One respondent disputed the claim that it is the spread of horticulturists and pastoralists that causes languages to go extinct and attributed language extinction instead to the expansion of theocratic and/or military chiefdoms, citing the case of the Zulu in South Africa. Thank you very much again to all the respondents. John Kingston |
|
| LL Issue: | 16.2089 | |
| Date Posted: | 06-Jul-2005 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
|
Back |
||
|
|
||
|
Sums main page
|
||
|
About LINGUIST
|
Contact Us
|
Report Broken Link
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents. |
|
