[PW] Re: Hypothetical cultural divergence

[Paul Zimmerman]

Megan Fitzgibbons <Megan.Fitzgibbons at Dal.Ca> writes:

 >Hello,

 >I've had a friend ask me a hypothetical, possibly unanswerable
 >question, and I thought this excellent listserv would be the best
 >shot of giving me direction toward finding some sort of answer.
 >The question, in my friend's words, is:

 >If you have a fairly homogeneous group of people that speak a
 >common language that are then sundered by a cataclysm, following
 >which the different groups remain fairly insular with little to
 >no communication with each other or outside cultures, how long
 >would it take the languages to diverge? After, say, 300 years,
 >would they be separate languages or dialects? What types of
 >differences would one expect? I want fairly pronounced differences
 >of custom and ritual, but this would no doubt be accompanied by
 >divergence in language as well.

 >I believe this is for a book he is writing.

 >I realize that there are probably not any "real life" anthropological
 >examples that could provide evidence of this scenario, but it is
 >possible to find scholarly speculation about the time needed for
 >cultural and linguistic divergence? I am aware of glottochronology
 >theories, but they are not very accepted amongst linguists.

 >Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

With something as arbitrary as human culture there can be no simple answer 
to this question. The attitude of the people makes a very large difference 
in how much and how fast things change.

As some have already posted, the contemporary Greeks claim to be able to 
make sense of Ancient Greek even today. 'It is said' that Aristotle could 
have read a modern Greek newspaper until some spelling reforms within the 
last few decades. Similarly, the Sanskrit language has been preserved 
unchanged for thousands of years because the speakers believe that the 
actual sounds of the language are important to the efficacy of the religious 
ceremonies conducted in this language.

Today we see the French struggling very deliberately to resist the influx of 
loanwords from English, even inventing their own terms to replace them. 
Obviously, how successful this is depends on how much the general population 
goes along with the 'official' institutions.

On the other hand, when Yugoslavia broke up, Serbs and Croats began speaking 
'different' languages -- ON PURPOSE. The main language of Yugoslavia had 
been called 'Serbo-Croatian' until then. But each nation deliberately made 
their own changes after the political separation, and the divergence 
continues. How long will it take for the two languages to become 
unintelligible with deliberate modification? Probably not very long.

Everything that can be said of language can be said of ritual and culture. 
Jews returning to Israel may find that they have very different cultural 
baggage from the lands where they had resided, but their religious practices 
fall into a fairly few known broad ranges despite more than a thousand years 
of separation. Yet when Henry VIII wanted a divorce, he changed the 
religious culture of Britain to get it, creating the Church of England in 
the space of a few years. (A specialist historian would have to tell you 
exactly how long it took to create the new liturgy, etc.) Human intervention 
makes a huge difference in human culture. How could it be otherwise?

So for the purpose of writing stories, the attitude of the fictional 
population to its culture can make the outcome that the author wants. :)