The rise and fall of languages

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The rise and fall of languages

R.M.W. Dixon

Cambridge University Press, 1997

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

Available at  / 71 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Bibliography: p. 153-162

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book puts forward a different approach to language change, the punctuated equilibrium model. This is based on the premise that during most of the 100,000 or more years that humans have had language, states of equilibrium have existed during which linguistic features diffused across the languages in a given area so that they gradually converged on a common prototype. From time to time, the state of equilibrium would be punctuated, with expansion and split of peoples and of languages, most recently, as a result of European colonisation and the globalisation of communication which are likely to result in the extinction, within the next hundred years, of 90% of the languages currently spoken. Professor Dixon suggests that every linguist should assume a responsibility for documenting some of these languages before they disappear.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgements
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Preliminaries
  • 3. Linguistic Areas and Diffusion
  • 4. The Family Tree Model
  • 5. Modes of change
  • 6. The Punctuated Equilibrium Model
  • 7. More on proto-languages
  • 8. Recent history
  • 9. Today's priorities
  • 10. Summary and prospects
  • Appendix - where the comparative method discovery procedure fails
  • References
  • Index.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top