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From: smryan@netcom.com (@#$%!?!)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
Message-ID: <smryanDA55Cv.G1G@netcom.com>
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Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 02:24:30 GMT
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: > > (3) Even if you magically made everyone speak the same language
: > > tomorrow morn, by next week you'll have divergences. Each locality
: > > will continue to diverge to incomprehensibilty without some 
: > > compelling reason. 

: It's amazing how people keep claiming this despite all the evidence
: to the contrary.

23-skidoo. Groovy. Cool, dude. 

What is your evidence that communities (young or old, black or white,
Aussie or English, etc) which do not feel compelled to communicate would
not diverge?

People makes mistakes as the speak. We all do it. Stutters, slurs,
sudden breaks. Some of the changes are repeated. Given the complications
of the brain, throat and mouth muscles, and the whole oral tract, I
think it extremely unlikely that identical changes will occur in two
separate communities. And so the variations will not be identical.

If two communities wish to communicate, they will. Teenagers and adults
share quite a bit language. Programmers and biologists do as well. But
when and where they do not wish to communicate, what mechanism do you
propose to keep their languages identical?


-- 
The Brothers of the brooding Dark,         | smryan@netcom.com  PO Box 1563
the Fathers of the fighters stark,         |          Cupertino, California
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and met the Mother moist and dark.         |              intolerance kills
