The verticalization model of language shift from a population-structure perspective

Abstract

AbstractIn Chapter 7 I evaluate the verticalization model’s capacity to explain language shift universally (according to Joshua R. Brown and Joseph Salmons) against a population-structure approach that I have developed in my work to account for differential language evolution, which subsumes language shift. I argue that although the verticalization model has its merits, especially in articulating the economic factors and patterns and networks of social interactions (among other ecological factors), its explanatory power appears to be overstated regarding not only its alleged universal applicability but also the case studies themselves. I show in the commentary that horizontal accommodation appears to account for the different cases of shift more accurately than vertical pressures (alone), be they economic or otherwise. I also adduce evidence from different parts of the world – including cases where members of the colonizing population actually shifted languages in favor of those spoken by the people they ruled, in addition to cases where the shifts are from one indigenous vernacular to another – which disputes the claim that the verticalization model applies universally. However, I also underscore the fact that there is a great deal to learn from the verticalization model of language shift regarding how this process occurs in diverse ecologies.