[personal profile] asterroc
Last night T$ and I were watching a cartoon series by Tartakovsky last night, and I assumed he was Polish while T$ told me he was Russian. There ensued a conversation about how Poland had been part of Russia at times in the past, and vice versa, so it makes sense they'd have similar names. Which prompted me to wonder if there is a language that is partway between Russian and Polish, or if there's a pidgin combination of the two (or whatever the appropriate word is instead of "pidgin").

Does this really happen, are there "intermediate" languages when there isn't geographical separation between two regions with different languages? I'm thinking of a comparison between how languages separate and how species evolve, that it'll start with two subspecies that become more and more distinct, and sometimes there'll be a third subspecies that can interbreed with both even when the two extremes can't interbreed with each other. Is it like that?

I am hopeful [livejournal.com profile] q10 will reply to this with his expertise, but if anyone has info it'd be interesting.

Date: 2009-11-19 04:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sildra.livejournal.com
I remember being told in a class once that if you start in Portugal, go through Spain, through France, and end up in Italy, the people in each village will understand, and speak a dialect similar to, the people in a village adjacent to them, regardless of when you cross country boundaries (which are more or less how the language boundaries are defined there). But it isn't like someone from the middle of France can necessarily understand someone from the middle of Spain.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for Chinese dialects.

Date: 2009-11-19 11:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zandperl.livejournal.com
My mother used to speak some Shanghai, and she would be able to understand Mandarin and make herself understood to Mandarin speakers, but communication with Cantonese-only speakers was impossible both ways.

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