1523: Linguistic Diversity in California Feb 13, 2019

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Just because most of North America had no independent writing systems as discussed yesterday, doesn't mean that there wasn't a rich linguistic history in that region. In fact, it is quite the opposite situation. In the region of what is now California alone, there is more linguistic diversity than Europe, with 27 distinct language families that don't seem to relate to each other very much. This should not be too surprising however, since the same factors that tend to lead to writing systems—large trade-networks—would lead to closer linguistic contact, and over time would not allow for groups to as easily become cut-off from contact and thereby naturally develop further linguistic distinctions.

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