The Fate of Complex Languages: Classical Arabic and Old Norse in the Age of Globalisation

摘要: I discuss the effects of globalisation on verbal inflection in two language groups, Arabic and Scandinavian. With term ‘globalisation’ do not only refer to most recent world history, but also earlier expansions empires, cultures languages. compare social cultural situation Classical Old Norse with those modern Scandinavian varieties. The hypothesis that factors historical dimension influence variables is confirmed for these cases. It was found more second learning takes place, internal dialect contact migrations occur, less prestige a has, transparent economic becomes. On other hand, tight small communities strong traditions few learners are be best environment inflectional complexities. When such expand, when ‘ethnic’ becomes tool smoother communication, restructuring place. In this sensitive phonological changes, appears almost ‘natural’. Other evidence from cases like Quechua Swahili indicate simplification morphologically semantically driven needs favorable circumstances take This strongly suggests has some universal characteristics, tendency towards economy transparency, dependent particular morphological structure.