You could perhaps explain it if the shifts appear because of interactions with other languages, but not so easily if they are supposed to be spontaneous or universal.
At any rate, the BBC reported on a new computer model for reconstructing ancient languages. Unfortunately the original paper assumes extensive knowledge of the literature, and about all I came away with is that they have a giant optimization problem and that they used Monte Carlo techniques to solve it rather than futilely trying an analytical approach or even a simplex method. They had too many language variables, and in cases like that the systematic approaches require impractical amounts of computer memory and take roughly forever, so you often get a better answer by randomly throwing sets of values through the "phase space" of the variables.
To be specific, suppose you have a million parameters in your problem. You can generate ten thousand sets of the million parameters with random values, calculate whatever you're trying to optimize for each of those ten thousand sets, and look for the minimum. Then do it again in a neighborhood of that minimum. And again in a tighter neighborhood, and after a while you'll be pretty close. Unless the function is pathological.
OK, fine. The optimization is only as reliable as the assumptions that go into it, of course, and I'm not able to judge those.
They looked at Proto-Austronesian (Polynesian et al).
Eldest Son asked "Why didn't they try it on the Romance languages and see if they could reconstruct Latin?" Good question. That sort of exercise has been done by hand, but it would be a nice calibration tool for the automated system. Assuming the algorithm could work smoothly with only a handful of dialects in each language...
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I listened to an interesting "Great Courses" lecture a few months ago about linguistics. He tried to give some examples of how sounds and intonations and contractions inevitably progress in human speech. It sounded pretty plausible, which is about my level of understanding of the field. They're not just completely making it up, but are going by changes in real modern languages in recent centuries, especially in areas of upheaval and rapid change.
But your son's question was a very interesting one. Always like to see those computer models tested!
I'd be interested in hearing that. If there are universal changes that suggests that ur-language(s) were not perfectly suited to humans as we are now.
I read once that some languages had undergone a great deal of simplification over time, as measured by the grammar of ancient texts. Chinese grammar was a given example. But in that case I'd think the simplification was due to the interaction of different languages using a common written language.
The same sort of thing might happen in large countries/empires, but instead of odd cases dropping away pronunciations converge. My amateur guess.
It wasn't that so much -- more like the geological process of orogeny and erosion. Every time a word comes into use, natural forces wear away at its sounds in predictable ways. I suppose it could even come full circle. Sounds just refuse to stay the same in spoken language over any length of time.
I wonder what's happening with sign languages? I'd expect something similar. People always change what they use.
Take that example of Cotton Mather saying "Behold the end of piracy." A modern person reads it and thinks "Behold the termination of what used to be the historical practice of piracy," because these days it's no longer colloquial to speak of the "end" of a lifestyle choice, even though we preserve the idiom "ends and means."
Only a few people in a culture are staying familiar with archaic uses and trying to impose orthodox pronunciation and grammar. Most speakers are inventing slang and adopting new accents. In that process, there supposedly are predictable things people do with their tongues and lips and with endings and intonations. The process is slow for small, isolated tribes, who often turn out to have spectacularly difficult sounds and grammar that no adult newcomer could ever master. Languages that have to survive lots of mixing of cultures lose many of those rough edges. The lecturer claimed that the main erosive force was adults trying to learn a new language.
The lecturer was McWhorter at The Great Courses a/k/a The Teaching Company. I don't think the one I watched is still available, but there's another by the same guy that seems from the reviews to be similar. He's a very good speaker. I really enjoyed the tape.
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