VMs: Re: Piraha and the VMS

["Philip Neal" <philipneal_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jacques Guy wrote:

> But the real point is: there are unbelievable languages out there,
> on the very verge of extinction.

This is entirely true. Recent books by David Crystal and others have
drawn attention to language death as a neglected issue amid the
current enthusiasm for diversity. But...

> Only 110 people left speaking
> Piraha! We cannot rule out that the VMs is in a strange, now
> long extinct, language of Europe.

What is the evidence for extensive language death in late mediaeval
Europe? There were two main tendencies, both irrelevant here.

1. Certain vernaculars (Castilian, Catalan, High German, Dutch)
attained the status of standard written languages with the result
that related vernaculars (Gallician, Swiss German) were stigmatised
as rustic dialects and largely failed to make the transition to
printing.

2. Minority languages within a nation state (Welsh, Prussian) lost
or failed to attain official status and ceased to attract new
speakers by immigration and intermarriage.

Neither phenomenon is relevant to the suggestion that a language
isolate such as Basque could have survived past 1348-50, unnoticed
and unrecorded, and died out at a subsequent date. I think it
could be demonstrated from records of tax and property that there
was no such language in England and probably the British Isles.
Eastern Europe may conceivably be a different matter: the main
evidence here would be the chance recording of Crimean Gothic in
the 16th century.

Philip Neal


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