[PW] Re: Hypothetical cultural divergence

[Marian Drabkin]

Tim, you say you "can understand Middle English", but --
  which Middle English?  The French-influenced language
  of the south, exemplified by Chaucer, or the more
  Germanic/Norse Middle English of the north?  There's a
  division of language very much like the one the original
  questioner asked about.  The two may as well be quite
  different languages. I don't know if speakers of one
  could understand speakers of the other, but certainly
  reading them is a quite different experience.
   
  Marian Drabkin
   
  
Timothy PWEE <timothypwee at nlb.gov.sg> wrote:
  
If this is for a novel written in English, the case of English probably
gives some idea of what is a believable time period for language change in
large populations: I can understand Middle English but not Old English.
That is about a thousand years apart. Given that there was the Norman
invasion in between, you might want to tag on a few hundred years extra.

If the two cultures remain in similar situations, I suspect it would
probably take two to three thousand years. However, it would be hard for
readers to believe that a cataclysm divided the land precisely down the
middle unless it was magical. Differences in terrain leads to differences
in occupational distribution and consequently differences in lanugage use.
A mostly maritime culture would be influenced by a different part of the
vocabulary versus an agrarian culture.

The cataclysm itself and its aftermath might cause differences in words
associated with disasters because of differing explanations becoming
accepted.

Slow


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