Lecture Notes: Language and Evolution (original) (raw)
Related papers
The mystery of language evolution
Frontiers in psychology, 2014
Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that, to date, (1) studies of nonhuman animals provide virtually no relevant parallels to human linguistic communication, and none to the underlying biological capacity; (2) the fossil and archaeological evidence does not inform our understanding of the computations and representations of our earliest ancestors, leaving details of origins and selective pressure unresolved; (3) our understanding of the genetics of language is so impoverished that there is little hope of connecting genes to linguistic processes any time soon; (4) all modeling atte...
The Evolution of Human Language
Advances in consciousness research, 2004
presents three perspectives on the evolution of language as a key element in the evolution of mankind in terms of the development of human symbol use. (1) He approaches this question by constructing possible scenarios in which mechanisms necessary for symbolic behavior could have developed, on the basis of the state of the art in evolutionary anthropology and genetics. (2) Non-linguistic symbolic behavior such as cave art is investigated as an important clue to the developmental background to the origin of language. Creativity and innovation and a population's ability to integrate individual experiments are considered with regard to historical examples of symbolic creativity in the visual arts and natural sciences. (3) Probable linguistic 'fossils' of such linguistic innovations are examined. The results of this study allow for new proposals for a 'protolanguage' and for a theory of language within a broader philosophical and semiotic framework, and raises interesting questions as to human consciousness, universal grammar, and linguistic methodology.
The Ongoing Debate on Language Evolution
How and why language has evolved to become what it is today, is the subject of intense debate. Chomsky long ago proposed that human language competence should be seen as a set of biologically inherited language principles. The adaptationist view suggests that the human cognitive apparatus must be specialized to language and was selected for by evolution. The non-adaptationist view rejects that idea and instead suggests emergence via a non-adaptationist route. Recently a third view language as shaped by the brain suggests that language is easy to learn and use because language has developed in such that it adapted to the capacities of our brains (which developed before language began to emerge). In this view, language acquisition is seen as resting on general cognitive processes, and constraints thereof. An alternative view suggests major aspects of UG are neither biological nor cultural in origin; rather that they reflect universal semiotic constraints inherent in the requirements for producing symbolic reference itself. Details of the evolutionary path of language remain unknown because we cannot revisit the world in ancient times to properly examine the subject of our speculation. A serious obstacle in this debate is the lack of scientific evidence supporting a coherent definition of Universal Grammar. Clarity with regard to this debate requires an in depth understanding of facts, concepts and theories which currently belong to different scientific disciplines.
Cultural Evolution of Language
Cultural Evolution, 2013
This chapter argues that an evolutionary cultural approach to language not only has already proven fruitful, but it probably holds the key to understand many puzzling aspects of language, its change and origins. The chapter begins by highlighting several still common misconceptions about language that might seem to call into question a cultural evolutionary approach. It explores the antiquity of language and sketches a general evolutionary approach discussing the aspects of function, fi tness, replication, and selection, as well the relevant units of linguistic evolution. In this context, the chapter looks at some fundamental aspects of linguistic diversity such as the nature of the design space, the mechanisms generating it, and the shape and fabric of language. Given that biology is another evolutionary system, its complex coevolution with language needs to be understood in order to have a proper theory of language. Throughout the chapter, various challenges are identifi ed and discussed, sketching promising directions for future research. The chapter ends by listing the necessary data, methods, and theoretical developments required for a grounded evolutionary approach to language. Language from an Evolutionary Perspective Language plays a central role in human cultural life, with thousands of languages being spoken, showing extensive and (from the point of view of other animal communication systems) unexpected variation throughout the world (Fitch 2011). From an evolutionary perspective, a central question posed by this variety of languages is how this diversity arose. Likewise, it is of central importance to elucidate the processes that shaped this variation, and to discover whether these processes differed in the past from what they are today (see, e.g., Baronchelli et al. 2012). Understanding these processes is not only relevant for understanding the history and evolution of languages, it can also
2003
The leading scholars in the rapidly growing field of language evolution give readable accounts of their theories on the origins of language and reflect on the most important current issues and debates. As well as providing a guide to their own published research in this area they highlight what they see as the most relevant research of others. The authors come from a wide range of disciplines involved in language evolution including linguistics, cognitive science, computational science, primatology, and archaeology.
Like any other animal species, humans have developed, over thousands of years, varied waysof communication, such as mural paintings and stone carvings. However, there is overall agreementthat language is the sole property of the human race as no similar communication system of suchcomplexity has been observed in the animal kingdom. Another feature that also fascinatedresearchers is how language has evolved with time. The earliest vocal human language can beroughly traced back as far as 20.000 years ago, although anthropologists agree that pin!pointing theexact date is not "uite relevant to our understanding of language and the significant changes whichoccurred in the course of recorded history. And whether they be spontaneously implementedchanges or, in a modern time frame, academic reforms, the impact of these modification onmainstream culture is of greater proportions than one might think.
Language as an evolutionary system
Physics of Life Reviews, 2005
John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry argued that human language signified the eighth major transition in evolution: human language marked a new form of information transmission from one generation to another [Maynard Smith J, Szathmáry E. The major transitions in evolution. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press; 1995]. According to this view language codes cultural information and as such forms the basis for the evolution of complexity in human culture. In this article we develop the theory that language also codes information in another sense: languages code information on their own structure. As a result, languages themselves provide information that influences their own survival. To understand the consequences of this theory we discuss recent computational models of linguistic evolution. Linguistic evolution is the process by which languages themselves evolve. This article draws together this recent work on linguistic evolution and highlights the significance of this process in understanding the evolution of linguistic complexity. Our conclusions are that: (1) the process of linguistic transmission constitutes the basis for an evolutionary system, and (2), that this evolutionary system is only superficially comparable to the process of biological evolution.