Davush wrote:I have read that languages further away from the originating centre are often more conservative (either phonologically or grammatically), such as Cantonese vs Mandarin. But the opposite is also true such as Moroccan Arabic dialects vs Saudi dialects. Are there any trends regarding distance from the 'homeland' and language change?
Generally smaller, less connected communities more isolated from non-natives speak more conservative forms, while larger, more connected communities with more contact with non-natives speak more progressive forms.
Two things at least can interfere with that:
- very small communities can be subject to founder effects - in a tiny population, it only takes a few charismatic individuals to change the language dramatically
- very isolated communities can evolve in totally different ways, making them
seem more radical. If one dialect moves 'n' steps to the left, and the other nine dialects move 'n+3' steps to the right, it can look like the first dialect is the one that has innovated, because its innovations are all 'weird'.
- where a large group comprises many smaller groups, the standard langauge (either as a replacement for all subgroups, or as an independent formal standard) may level away a lot of the individual developments in each dialect, producing something that
looks conservative. If you 'average out' a language that has moved n to the left with one that has moved n to the right, the result is something that looks about the same as the original...
That's my impression, at least. Though of course these are generalisations.