The Lingo Lounge
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2018 3:54 am
OK,.. here's my weird hypothesis:
The Indo-european language "idea" (the "proto" versions before any "nation"/tribe adopted them as their "national/tribal" language per se) was "created" by users of the then-most-popular language idea, which was agglutinative type languages, as a pidgin "lingua franca" simplified version of their "native language(s)",.. because the "creators" of the pidgin needed a quickly learnable language for use between their "subservient" populations and themselves,.. and the pidgin was quite popular with "the masses" (as it was "easier") and eventually became the "standard tongue" of some "nations"/tribes INCLUDING the ruling class!
Agglutinative languages are VERY idiosyncratic and "specifically localized" to generally smallish areas of stable (long history) population. They are that way because the POINT of language to very localized tribal populations is to tell US from THEM.
Everyday language (to agglut speakers) is to ENCODE "normal language" in a form that is hard for "foreigners" to understand and, more importantly, to MIMIC,.. so that neighbors are easily distinguished, especially since ones neighbors look nearly identical to your family/tribe/"nation".
Agglutinative language is more "normal" and "natural" for human beings than "the alternative".
The Austronesian family of languages, especially in places such as New Guinea and Australia, are great examples of this property.
When societies begin to be more and more "Empire-ical", meaning containing more than a very-few "cultures" under an Emperor (or Khan), they find it increasingly more urgent to prioritize "understanding" over "discrimination".
My contention is that "Proto-Indoeuropean" was the purposeful creation of the worlds most widespread culture of the time, which had just begun to realize that it had a natural "edge" because of new technologies, and needed a pidgin language to unite it's disparate sub-cultures under an "Imperial Cultural Idea".
..the pidgin got out of control, or course, and eventually overtook the "mother tongue", and the "mother culture", largely because it was more efficient and ecumenical.
And, thus, the present world.
The Indo-european language "idea" (the "proto" versions before any "nation"/tribe adopted them as their "national/tribal" language per se) was "created" by users of the then-most-popular language idea, which was agglutinative type languages, as a pidgin "lingua franca" simplified version of their "native language(s)",.. because the "creators" of the pidgin needed a quickly learnable language for use between their "subservient" populations and themselves,.. and the pidgin was quite popular with "the masses" (as it was "easier") and eventually became the "standard tongue" of some "nations"/tribes INCLUDING the ruling class!
Agglutinative languages are VERY idiosyncratic and "specifically localized" to generally smallish areas of stable (long history) population. They are that way because the POINT of language to very localized tribal populations is to tell US from THEM.
Everyday language (to agglut speakers) is to ENCODE "normal language" in a form that is hard for "foreigners" to understand and, more importantly, to MIMIC,.. so that neighbors are easily distinguished, especially since ones neighbors look nearly identical to your family/tribe/"nation".
Agglutinative language is more "normal" and "natural" for human beings than "the alternative".
The Austronesian family of languages, especially in places such as New Guinea and Australia, are great examples of this property.
When societies begin to be more and more "Empire-ical", meaning containing more than a very-few "cultures" under an Emperor (or Khan), they find it increasingly more urgent to prioritize "understanding" over "discrimination".
My contention is that "Proto-Indoeuropean" was the purposeful creation of the worlds most widespread culture of the time, which had just begun to realize that it had a natural "edge" because of new technologies, and needed a pidgin language to unite it's disparate sub-cultures under an "Imperial Cultural Idea".
..the pidgin got out of control, or course, and eventually overtook the "mother tongue", and the "mother culture", largely because it was more efficient and ecumenical.
And, thus, the present world.