John E. Clifford scripsit:
> Sounds about right. Languages tend to go with the sword or (when or
> if there is a difference) the money.
Commerce and religion, mostly. The sword actually doesn't work well:
most empire-builders don't care what languages the conquered speak.
Germanic-speakers have conquered a lot of territory, but very little
of it actually became Germanic-speaking, with the exceptions of England
(where there may have been a plague) and Prussia (genocide).
--
John Cowan cowan@hidden.email http://ccil.org/~cowan
The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own
skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among
other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague. --Edsger Dijkstra