Historical sociolinguistics and the puzzle of origins

A number of years ago two of the founders of the field of sociolinguistics, Joshua Fishman and John Gumperz, were working together on a pioneering study of Spanish–English bilingualism in a Jersey City barrio. From time to time they would argue over their findings. When challenged for evidence, Fishman (trained in statistics and sociology) would go to his office and bring back a ream of computer printout with analyses of multiple questionnaires. On other days, when Fishman challenged Gumperz (a field linguist and ethnographer), Gumperz would reply: “Last night at a party I heard someone say it.” The claims in the last chapter about the current state of languages in Israel can be tested by either of these two methods of handling data: by statistical analysis of the results of surveys or questionnaires, or by ethnographic observation and interviews.

But, unfortunately, we do not have the data. At the end of Chapter 1, I was probably more certain than I should have been, for Israel has had no language question on the census since 1983. Israeli Hebrew language departments continue to discourage studies of Hebrew later than the Mishnaic period; Modern Hebrew, they assert, has not yet jelled. So my personal assessment of the present sociolinguistic situation is open to debate, and my guess about the future can also be questioned, accounting for the nervousness of the president of the Hebrew Language Academy. But that is talking about something that could be checked, were there resources available for surveys or interviews. Neither of these methods is even conceivable for historical studies, especially in trying to reconstruct the sociolinguistic ecology of communities thousands of years ago.