Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 06:27:59 -0400
From: Dr I Price <PEWLEYFORT@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: memetic speciation? [was what's in a meme]
To: "INTERNET:memetics@mmu.ac.uk" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Mark, replying to me
>Yes, at the top taxonomic level there is a pretty good correlation
between groups of languages as identified by standard comparative
methods and groups of humans as identified in studies by
Cavelli-Sforza's group. But that's only the top-level classification in
a system which has perhaps a half-dozen more levels. Linguists are aware
of the problem and some suspect that taxonomic trees may not be the way
to represent the relationships among closely related languages.<
Is there a good accessible referenc eon the subject? I am just starting
trying to explore what has or has not been written on linguistic taxonomy=
/
non taxonomy. I don't see especially after John Wilkins observations on
plant species that linguistic cross pollination lower down the hierarchy
renders a taxonomic approach invalid.
If
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