[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
And Rosta scripsit: > Allow me to veer off the topic of engelangs for a sec & ask: (1) > Can you point me to a source/reference for the plague theory (which > is new to me, but sounds interesting) & I'm basically following Nicholas Ostler's _Empires of the Word_ here, which is a fascinating look at a number of widespread languages, with reference to how they became so and how they lost their grip eventually. The plague theory comes from p. 313 and is attributed to David Keys. The bibliography says "Keys, David (1999), Catastrophe: an investigation into the origins of the modern world. London: Century." The book is stuffed with thousands of items like this one. My favorite EotW fact: Arabic has spread widely on the wings of Islam, but it has become the vernacular speech only in countries that already spoke Afroasiatic languages. > (2) Is the Prussian genocide a genocide of Prussian-speaking Balts? Prussian-speaking Balts, yes. I should also have mentioned the modern cases of population displacement and/or genocide by Germanics, namely the U.S., Canada, Australia. New Zealand is an intermediate case, perhaps because there was only one non-Germanic language involved, somewhat as on the U.S. Navajo Reservation (Navajo is now the most widely spoken Native language in the U.S.) -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@hidden.email Be yourself. Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where no such knowledge exists. Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup, James Clark is as perennial as the grass. --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath