🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug10.132103.23449@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, rath@binah writes:
>In article <1992Aug10.103834.2052@doc.ic.ac.uk>, rap@peaberry.doc.ic.ac.uk (Ross Paterson) writes:
>>From article <1992Aug8.071313.14258@leland.Stanford.EDU>, by richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter):
>>>Is there a word for a race that is native to an area when another race
>>>invades?
>>
>>Yes: aboriginal (n. aborigine)
>
>I do not think it will come into general usage, being somewhat of a 
>highly marked word in some respects, but isn't the linguistic term
>for this sort of thing "substratum"--at least in the realm of language 

No.

A substratum is an *adduced* explanation for irregularities in the history of a
language, when developments are not quite what would have been predicted given
the regular rules for the language and yet not explainable by other processes
such as analogy.

The hypothesis of a substratum is that the influence of the original language
of the speakers influenced the new language.  This explanation is valid for
early variations, but to claim (as some do) that substratum influence can be
seen centuries or millenia later is not.  (Oh, yeah, *in my arrogant, trained-
historical-linguist opinion*.)

>and dialectal conquest, usually accompanied by military,
>cultural and/or political subjugation...as in the Celtic languages being 
>a substratum of "English"...altough accurate in a certain limited 

The only point at which the Celtic languages would have been a substratum of
English was during the very early part of the Germanic invasions of Britain.
Further, my understanding of the invasion is that it really was a military
takeover, with original populace driven out of their lands to make room for the
new owners.  That doesn't leave a lot of room for substratum influence, which
depends on an old stock adopting a new language, not leaving altogether.

This is very different from the way that the hypothesized Celtic substratum in
French worked:  For example, the system of counting by 20's (soixante-dix for
expected, and dialectal, septante and quatre-vingts for expected, & dialectal,
huitante) is very much echoed in the Celtic languages.

No such have been posited for the history of English, to the best of my
knowledge.

>descriptive way, I don't think "substratum" will grow beyond linguistic
>usages in this context... [remainder deleted]

Nor should it.  Nor does it mean what you thought, and so even if it were to so
grow, it would not be the linguistic concept in a new usage.
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_