Re: Representing futuristic English


Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On 25 Aug 2005 07:17:00 -0700, <sigvald@xxxxxxxx> wrote in
> <news:1124979420.321387.275860@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> in rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> > Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> There's no doubt that even without such efforts, Icelandic
> >> has changed more slowly than other western European
> >> languages, but that's not really very surprising: you're
> >> talking about a small and rather homogeneous population
> >> subjected to much less external linguistic contact than
> >> most.
>
> > No, Iceland was a Danish colony until the early 20th
> > century and all contact with authorities and all trade
> > and other affairs were in foreign languages so the
> > external linguistic contact was much greater than most.
>
> I'm not sure that that's true in the relevant sense of
> 'contact', which is somewhat specialized, but I'd have to
> know a great deal more about the details of the situation to
> tell.

Well, there were Basque, Flemish and Frech, among others, fishermen
around the coasts of Iceland, Dutch, English, Spanish and Hansa
merchants visiting the coasts and occasionally operating as pirates,
all interaction with agents of the Danish government was in a foreign
language. It was just the day to day interaction between neighbours
that was carried out in Icelandic and when the first towns appeared the
language there, even among Icelanders was Danish or other foreign
language.

.

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