Language Barriers
A really cool interview about the evolution of language paralleling the evolution of species, saying that new languages evolve in sudden spurts of linguistic speciation rather
than steady accumulations of change.
What about variation in language as an inoculant, preventing dangerous ideas from spreading too rapidly?
I don’t know. It could be. If you had a lot of different speakers, different languages, that could slow down the spread of ideas — but I don’t think that’s anything that co-evolved with languages. I don’t think languages evolved to slow the spread of ideas.
It is the Babel myth — in the sense that God struck everybody down and the gave people these different languages so they couldn’t make the Tower of Babel … so I guess that’s an old theme. But I don’t think that has anything to do with the evolution of language. Language is about communicating.
Samer Marzouq
February 6, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
interesting…
Craig
February 8, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
A disturbing trend. First language was introduced as a factor in anthropology, and now in biology too? :O
Not sure what to make of it, but linguists need to drink a little less coffee I think. Language doesn’t use the same mechanisms, why would people try to apply the same rules? Evolution, OK. I even say my C code evolves (of course, it really doesn’t, I just get better at writing it, but I like to say it evolves anyway). But specieation? WTF, eh? :D