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gh333 t1_j3opbl2 wrote

Reply to comment by Dan13l_N in What, if at all, is the link between linguistic morphology and the topography of where a given language originated? by Djinn_and_juice

What about Norwegian and Icelandic though? Norway has very isolated, mountainous pockets like Iceland, and yet Norwegian is at a similar level of complexity as the other continental languages while Icelandic remained more conservative in that respect.

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Connect_Office8072 t1_j3ori0v wrote

Maybe because Norwegians have traditionally been a sea oriented culture, could that mean they were exposed to other languages more?

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gh333 t1_j3q1tvt wrote

Iceland is also very sea oriented. It was a hub for cod and whale fishing by both Norwegian and Portuguese sailors throughout the middle ages and into the modern period. The major language changes that today make Norwegian and Icelandic mutually unintelligible were mostly complete by the 16th century, which is before the period of intense economic and social decline that Iceland experienced in the 17th century onward due to a combination of Danish economic colonialism, waves of black death, and famines caused by volcanic eruptions. I think it would be difficult to argue that remote Norwegian fjords were more remote than Iceland during this time period, or at least not by much.

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Dan13l_N t1_j3qcil0 wrote

Most peoples connected to sea aren't isolated at all, it's much easier to travel over sea than over land. I don't know the precise statistics, I think it's other way round -- morphologically complex and isolated languages tend to be found in mountain areas. I think J. Nichols is the strongest proponent, she has given examples from Caucasus...

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Zeryxx t1_j3ske4x wrote

I found from my time in Norway that there are many distinct dialect differences that seem to be oriented around the landscape. I'd imagine that the mountainous terrain contributed to some amount of local isolation that fostered these changes in dialect.

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