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Comments on How do linguists identify the origins of verbal habits that originate from other languages?

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How do linguists identify the origins of verbal habits that originate from other languages?

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When an observed verbal habit has more than one potential source, and that source is likely to be a different language or dialect, how do linguists determine the most likely origin?

For example, if some speakers of Language A add an extra vowel to certain words, in a way that seems to resemble both Language B and Language C, how would a linguist determine if one, both, or neither languages were likely responsible for introducing the change?

I'm assuming that Language A has many speakers of both Languages B & C

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1 comment thread

Inspired by the ‘r’ insertion questions (1 comment)
Inspired by the ‘r’ insertion questions
Eric Isaac‭ wrote about 1 year ago

Inspired by questions here on English speakers inserting an ‘r’ into various words. While trying to answer these questions, I realized that I didn’t have a particularly rigorous way to choose between several plausible causes, and was curious what a better method may look like.