Talk:Dahl's law

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Florian Blaschke in topic Distribution

[Untitled] edit

Which Dahl is this law named after? --Twid (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

It was named that by Meinhof in 1903 after the missionary Edmund Dahl. — kwami (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

Distribution edit

Which languages exactly have undergone this law? Northeast Bantu languages lists Northeast Coast Bantu – which includes the Sabaki branch, which in turn includes Swahili –, too, but according to this article, Swahili does not show the effects of this law. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

@Kwamikagami: Can you help solve this contradiction? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:02, 11 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
My bad. I remember finding the source that stated Dahl's Law defines NE Bantu, but that is contradicted by the sources I'm finding now. Perhaps some author inferred that it must have been ancestral, as not the kind of thing you'd borrow, but Masele & Nurse infer just the opposite, that individual words reflecting Dahl's Law have spread through contact -- but also, apparently, there are languages in which it is no longer active. I doubt it's possible to give a complete or definite list of languages that have it, but I listed some that I found were productive or show traces. — kwami (talk) 19:40, 11 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Wonderful! Thank you for clearing that up.   Resolved --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)Reply