On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > #On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > # > #> In point of fact, after >200,000 years no name or word or language would > #> be recognizable. > # > #Given the correction factor of perhaps x30, and the continuous control of > #territory by one culture, I don't know if I agree. > > I was thinking of Easterners. Oh - that case is too complicated for me. Do priests talk to the gods in a particular language? How stable have Hebrew and Arabic proven to be? > #Could someone important who lived the entire time (and was much at > #court) single-handedly stabilize the language? > > Not in our world. It would require magic or something comparable, > constantly affecting the minds of all speakers. If Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar was still alive today, and had spent the intervening time having new adventures and being glamorous, it seems to me I might be using a much harder language right now. > Now, *something* has held back technological evolution for both races, > so maybe there is something. But it's not in the nature of human > language (counting both races as human) to be so stable. > > #How much has Chinese changed over the last 3k? > > As much as Latin, I think. The near-complete unity of the writing system > across the "dialects" -- languages, by other criteria, such as > intercomprehensibility -- tends to mask this. Has Latin changed that much? I think I ought to be able to read the Vatican newspaper if I could figure out the phrases they use for "terrorism" and "motion picture" and "chocolate", and relearned classical Latin. Also, I've lost track of the thread of the argument, but I think a stable written language would suffice to prove whatever the point was.