The past careers of languages are as diverse as the worlds that each language has created for its speakers. They have suffered very different fates: some (like Sanskrit or Aramaic) growing to have speaker populations distributed across vast tracts, but ultimately shrinking to insignificance; others (such as the languages of the Caucasus or Papua) twinkling steadily in inaccessible refuges; others still yielding up their speakers to quite different traditions (as in so many parts of North and South America, Africa and Australia). Some (such as Egyptian and Chinese) maintained their speakers and their traditions for thousands of years in a single territory, defying all invaders; others (such as Greek and Latin) spread by military invasion, but ultimately lost ground to new invaders.
Often enough, one tradition has piggybacked on another, ultimately supplanting it. One big language parasitises another, and in a ‘coup de main’ takes over the channels built up over generations. This is a common trick as empires succeed one another, in every time and continent: Persia’s Aramaic made good use of the networks established for Lydian in seventh-century Asia Minor; in the sixteenth century, Spanish usurped the languages of the Aztecs and Incas, using them to rule in Mexico and Peru; and in the early days of British India, English and Urdu gained access to power structures built in Persian. But the timescale on which these changing fortunes have been played out is astonishingly varied: a single decade may set the pattern for a thousand years to follow, as when Alexander took over the eastern Mediterranean from the Persians: or a particular trend may assert itself little by little, mile by mile, village by village, over thousands of years: just so did Chinese percolate in East Asia.
– Ostler, Empires of the Word, pp. 11-12
A few thoughts:
- The Central Asian language we have learned is a mountain language, one of those “twinkling steadily in inaccessible refuges.” This is how it survived as successive larger and more powerful languages of empires washed over one another down on the plains. Never underestimate the power of mountains to preserve languages and cultures.
- ‘Coup de main’ means a surprise attack or a quick, forceful military action, “blow with the hand” in French. Had to look this up just now since Ostler didn’t provide a translation or footnote. It’s curious how many authors still assume their English readers don’t need the translations of French terms like this one. This is probably from our own language history where French was viewed as the language of the educated elite during the period of Middle English, a tradition that still leaves traces like this here and there.
- It is remarkable and unpredictable how quickly a language’s fortunes can change in a given area. In our region, the past several decades have seen the “backward” language of the mountains and nomads become more dominant in our area than the three massive surrounding languages. This is largely because of accidents of American foreign policy in our people group’s favor. This surprising takeover has happened even while little pockets of the languages of ancient empires still barely manage to hold on among minorities. And all the while the internet and globalization mean that English is making massive inroads into each of these language communities. Thirty five years ago this picture would have seemed impossible.
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