Geographical languages

[Karutoshika]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but search didn't show any such topics.

Anyway, I was reading an article on NY times and it raised a very interesting topic about direction distinction in languages, and specifically about languages that don't have relative coordinate system and instead use geographic coordinates.
This was new to me!

Anyway, feel free to read the article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magaz ... .html?_r=1
and let's discuss it here

I think it's fascinating that such a thing exists. And for some reason it is always different aboriginal languages that have the whackiest properties to them Though, it is quite understandable, as the smaller the population is the more difficult features the languages might posses (according to some research, sorry, can't give you a link).

[zompist]

Not a Lexipedia reader, I guess.

And for some reason it is always different aboriginal languages that have the whackiest properties to them

Kind of a provincial way to put it. Statistically, less familiar languages will always have exotic features-- no matter which languages are familiar. If there are 5000 languages, only 50 of which are well known, then any feature not found in those 50 languages will be exotic. (Plus of course the well-known languages influence each other; the less-well-known ones influence only their neighbors.)

[Karutoshika]

Not a Lexipedia reader, I guess.

I guess not. Let me google that and see what I missed

Kind of a provincial way to put it. Statistically, less familiar languages will always have exotic features-- no matter which languages are familiar. If there are 5000 languages, only 50 of which are well known, then any feature not found in those 50 languages will be exotic. (Plus of course the well-known languages influence each other; the less-well-known ones influence only their neighbors.)

Well, that's not exactly what I mean. And I mentioned about the scientific research about this property. So don't blame me
Let me try to give a short overview of what was written (as I remember it) - if there are very many speakers of a certain language and it is spread over the large area (as any major natural language) it tends to lose its complexity and settle on "average" level of complexity for grammar. Especially if it is influenced by other languages.
BUT, if some relatively small tribe (like not more than several thousands speakers) is isolated from the rest of the world and not influenced by other languages it tends to develop some very complex concepts in its grammar. That's what I read.

But either way, that's not what I wanted to discuss as this is quite a broad topic. I was more interested in geographical directions in languages as was described in the article

[Nortaneous]

Plus of course the well-known languages influence each other; the less-well-known ones influence only their neighbors.

This is a good rule of thumb, but is it a rule? There are some obscure languages that probably once had a lot of influence (Mon, Pyu), and some well-known languages that haven't had much influence (German, Japanese).

(If it's true that the sesquisyllabic-and-isolating > monosyllabic-and-tonal structure came from Hmong-Mien and spread to Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and Mon-Khmer, that would be another example. And if the number of times I've seen speculation about a Munda substrate in whatever Indian language is any guide, there's another. And then there's my pet crackpot theory of phonological influence in the languages of the British Isles [and possibly further than that, at least with the apical/laminal contrast] from something like Basque -- Proto-Basque had a pervasive fortis/lenis distinction and no /m/, OE seems to have had word-final fortis resonants, OI had a fortis/lenis resonant contrast and no lenis /m/... but that's not very much influence, admittedly.)

[M Mira]

Let me try to give a short overview of what was written (as I remember it) - if there are very many speakers of a certain language and it is spread over the large area (as any major natural language) it tends to lose its complexity and settle on "average" level of complexity for grammar. Especially if it is influenced by other languages.
BUT, if some relatively small tribe (like not more than several thousands speakers) is isolated from the rest of the world and not influenced by other languages it tends to develop some very complex concepts in its grammar. That's what I read.

I don't think it's more than a tendency. Dominant languages can have statistically weird features: General American and Mandarin Chinese have rhotic vowels, which are actually very rare despite occuring in the world's two most significant languages. Chinese has been both SVO and has relative clause before the modified noun as far as literary evidence goes, which is a rare combination (IIRC, anyone has actual statistics?). Another oddity: the word order Oblique-Verb-Object is only found in modern Chinese, and is common across all varieties. The weirder thing is that this feature spotaneously happened in the past two millenia, as Classical Chinese had oblique clause last as in modern English and all other VO kanguages.

[linguoboy]

Plus of course the well-known languages influence each other; the less-well-known ones influence only their neighbors.

This is a good rule of thumb, but is it a rule? There are some obscure languages that probably once had a lot of influence (Mon, Pyu), and some well-known languages that haven't had much influence (German, Japanese).

German and Japanese "haven't had much influence"? Tell that to the Hungarians, Russians, Czechs, Poles, Slovenes--hell, basically everyone in Eastern Europe. And to the Koreans and Chinese.

I'm really not sure what yardstick you're using here for "influence".

[kanejam]

... Basque influence on Old Irish ...

Wasn't there a recent thread about the Irish coming from Spain o.O

Chinese has been both SVO and has relative clause before the modified noun as far as literary evidence goes, which is a rare combination (IIRC, anyone has actual statistics?).

According to WALS (which has a limited sample) it is only found in the Chinese languages.