Het paper Geographic Distributions of Linguistic Variation Reflect Dynamics of Differentiation door John Nerbonne en Wilbert Heeringa uit 2006 past de Levenshtein metiing toe op een selectie RND dialecten in Groningen, Drente en Overijssel om het Gravity model van Trudgill te toetsen. De populatiegegevens stammen uit 1815 om de verhullende invloeden van hedendaagse mobiliteit tegen te gaan.
Wellicht had de atlas Doorgaande wegen in Nederland, 16e tot 19e eeuw door Frits H. Horsten, die ik eerder deze week in de Meertens bibliotheek tegen kwam, van pas kunnen komen...
from the paper:
5.2. Evidence for Diffusion
Discussions of linguistic gravity have focused on identifying elements which
are missing from the original model (Boberg, 2000; Horvath and Horvath,
2001). One suspects that Trudgill might accept that social and political ties
might likewise play a role in the diffusion of linguistic innovation without
rejecting his basic model which emphasizes the forces of accommodation
and conformity.
The study here, on the other hand, urges that we interpret the role of geo-
graphic proximity and increased social contact not as forces promoting lin-
guistic similarity but rather as forces promoting linguistic differentiation. We
speculate that the most profound dynamic in linguistic variation is our differ-
entiation of ourselves from our neighbors.
This radically different view was enabled first because we took the step
of examining a large body of linguistic material, rather than a small set of
variables, each examined individually, and second because we argued that
any given synchronic snapshot of linguistic variation should bear the marks
of long-standing dynamics of diffusion.
