Re: Is language development evolutionary, or designed by the culture?

"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1o21437i7izps.mw1wshrazlk4$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx:

(snip)

>> I strongly disagree that such wholesale change occurs spontaneously.
>
> You'd have a hard time finding a historical linguist who
> agreed with you, I think.
>

Do you seriously believe that a spontaneous change can occur simultaneously
among a sufficiently large group of people which then becomes a standard
feature of the language, and if it didn't occur among a large number of
people, what caused it to spread?

So, presumably, you would agree that something like which is described in
my joking sig below,(It's not my quote, so don't blame me if the dates are
not quite correct), and simultaneously, and spontaneously, all or most
English speakers got up and shifted their vowels one day?


--
David Wright Sr.

To find the end of Middle English, you discover the exact date and
time the Great Vowel Shift took place (the morning of May 5, 1450,
at some time between neenuh fiftehn and nahyn twenty-fahyv).
Kevin Wald
.

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