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Evolutionary linguistics is the scientific study of the origins and development of language. The main challenge in this research is the lack of empirical data: spoken language leaves practically no traces. This led to an abandonment of the field for more than a century^[1]. Since the late 1980s, the field has been revived in the wake of progress made in the related fields of psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, evolutionary anthropology and cognitive science.

History

August Schleicher (1821–1868) and his Stammbaumtheorie are often quoted as the starting point of evolutionary linguistics. Inspired by the natural sciences, especially biology, Schleicher was the first to compare languages to evolving species. ^[2] He introduced the representation of language families as an evolutionary tree in articles published in 1853. Joseph Jastrow published a gestural theory of the evolution of language in the seventh volume of Science, 1886.^[3]

The Stammbaumtheorie proved to be very productive for comparative linguistics, but didn't solve the major problem of evolutionary linguistics: the lack of fossil records. The question of the origin of language was abandoned as unsolvable. Famously, the Société Linguistique de Paris in 1866 refused to admit any further papers on the subject.

The field has re-appeared in 1988 in the Linguistic Bibliography, as a subfield of psycholinguistics. In 1990, Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom published their paper "Natural Language & Natural Selection" which strongly argued for an adaptationist approach to language origins. Their paper is often credited with reviving the interest in evolutionary linguistics. This development was further strengthened by the establishment (in 1996) of a series of conferences on the Evolution of Language (now known as "Evolang"), promoting a scientific, multidisciplinary approach to the issue, and interest from major academic publishers (e.g., the Studies in the Evolution of Language series has been appearing with Oxford University Press since 2001) and scientific journals.

Recent developments

Evolutionary linguistics as a field is rapidly evolving as a result of developments in neighboring disciplines. Some of these developments are:

1. Studies of (human) genetics have started to make an impact on theories of language evolution. The discovery of the FoxP2-gene in an English family with a heritable disorder has led to a series of discoveries of versions of the gene in mice, songbirds, predators, great apes and even Neandertals, and reconstructions of the evolutionary history of the gene. Although the interpretation of these results is still contentious, it is clear that genetics will sooner or later start providing constraints on plausible theories of language origins.
2. Studies in (behavioral) biology have forced researchers to reassess many claims of uniquely human abilities for language and speech. For instance, Tecumseh Fitch has argued that the descended larynx is not unique to humans. Similarly, once held uniquely human traits such as formant perception, combinatorial phonology and compositional semantics are now thought to be shared with at least some nonhuman animal species.
3. Computational modelling is now widely accepted as an approach to assure the internal consistency of language evolution scenarios. Approximately one third of all accepted papers at the most recent Evolution of Language conference [1] deal with computational models.

Approaches

One original researcher in the field is Luc Steels, head of the research units of Sony CSL in Paris and the AI Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He and his team are investigating ways in which artificial agents self-organize languages with natural-like properties and how meaning can co-evolve with language. Their research is based on the hypothesis that language is a complex adaptive system that emerges through adaptive interactions between agents and continues to evolve in order to remain adapted to the needs and capabilities of the agents. This research has been implemented in fluid construction grammar (FCG), a formalism for construction grammars that has been specially designed for the origins and evolution of language.

The approach of computational modeling and the use of robotic agents grounded in real life is claimed to be theory independent. It enables the researcher to find out exactly what cognitive capacities are needed for certain language phenomena to emerge. It also focuses the researcher in formulating hypotheses in a precise and exact manner, whereas theoretical models often stay very vague.

Some linguists, such as John McWhorter, have analyzed the evolution and construction of basic communication methods such as Pidginization and Creolization.^[4]

"Nativist" models of "Universal Grammar" are informed by linguistic universals such as the existence of pronouns and demonstratives, and the similarities in each languages process of nominalization (the process of verbs becoming nouns) as well as the reverse, the process of turning nouns into verbs.^[5] This is a purely descriptive approach to what we mean by "natural language" without attempting to address its emergence.

EVOLANG Conference

The Evolution of Language International Conferences [2][3] have been held biennially since 1996.

1. 1996 Edinburgh: Hurford, J. R., Studdert-Kennedy, M. & Knight C. (eds), Approaches to the Evolution of Language - Social and Cognitive Bases, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
2. 1998 London: Chris Knight, James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy (eds), The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form, Cambridge University Press,
3. 2000 Paris: J. L. Desalles & L. Ghadakpour (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Evolution of Language
4. 2002 Boston: J. Hurford & T. Fitch (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the Evolution of Language
5. 2004 Leipzig
6. 2006 Rome: Kenny Smith, Andrew, D. M. Smith, Angelo Cangelosi, The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, World Scientific, ISBN 9812566562.
7. 2008 Barcelona [4]
8. 2010 Utrecht, the Netherlands, April 14-17 2010. [5]. 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language. Proceedings edited by Andrew Smith, Bart de Boer, Marieke Schouwstra and Kenny Smith, World Scientific.

Notes

1. ^ for about 12 decades, from the 1860s to the 1980s.
2. ^ Taub, Liba. Evolutionary Ideas and "Empirical" Methods: The Analogy Between Language and Species in the Works of Lyell and Schleicher. British Journal for the History of Science 26, pages 171–193 (1993)
3. ^ Jastrow J (1886). "The Evolution of Language". Science 7 (176S): 555–557. doi:10.1126/science.ns-7.176S.555. PMID 17778380. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0036-8075%2818860618%292%3A7%3A176%3C555%3ATEOL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7. 
4. ^ (2002) McWhorter, John. The Power of Babel: The Natural History of Language, Random House Group.
5. ^ (2005) Deutscher, Guy. The Unfolding of Language, Owl Books.

References

• Cangelosi, A. and Harnad, S. (2001) The adaptive advantage of symbolic theft over sensorimotor toil: Grounding language in perceptual categories Evolution of Communication 4(1):pp. 117–142.
• M. Christiansen and S. Kirby (eds.), Language Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York (2003), ISBN 978-0199244843.
  • Bickerton, D., Symbol and Structure: A Comprehensive Framework for Language Evolution, pp. 77–93.
  • Hurford, J. R., The Language Mosaic and Its Evolution, pp. 38–57.
  • Lieberman, P.,Motor Control, Speech, and the Evolution of Language, pp. 252–271.
• Deacon, T. (1997) The symbolic species: the coevolution of language and the brain, Norton, New York.
• Hauser, M.D. (1996) The evolution of communication, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
• Daniel Dor and Jablonka Eva (2001). How language changed the genes. In Tabant J. Ward. S. (editors). Mouton de Gruyer: Berlin, pp 149–175.
• Dor D. and Jablonka E. (2001) From cultural selection to genetic selection: a framework for the evolution of language. Selection, 1–3, pp. 33–57.
• Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch WT (2002). "The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?". Science 298 (5598): 1569–79. doi:10.1126/science.298.5598.1569. PMID 12446899. http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~junwang4/langev/localcopy/pdf/hauser02science.pdf. 
• Jackendoff, R. (2002) Foundations of language: brain, meaning, grammar, evolution Oxford University Press, New York
• Komarova, N.L. (2007). Language and Mathematics: An evolutionary model of grammatical communication. In: History & Mathematics. Ed. by Leonid Grinin, Victor C. de Munck, and Andrey Korotayev. Moscow, KomKniga/URSS. pp. 164–179. ISBN 9785484010011.
• Nowak, M.A. and N.L. Komarova (2001) Towards an evolutionary theory of language, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (7), pp. 288–295.
• Pinker, S. (1994) The language instinct, HarperCollins, New York.
• Pinker, S. and P. Bloom (1990) Natural language and natural selection Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: pp. 707–784
• Sampson, Geoffrey: Evolutionary Language Understanding, published 1996 by Cassel (London), ISBN 0304336505
• Steels, Luc (2001) Grounding Symbols through Evolutionary Language Games. In: Cangelosi A. and Parisi D. (Eds.) Simulating the Evolution of Language Springer.
• Steklis, H.D. and Harnad, S (1976) From hand to mouth: Some critical stages in the evolution of language In: Harnad, S., Steklis, H. D. and Lancaster, J., (1976) (Eds) Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 280: 1–914.
• See also the UIUC Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography/Repository (1200+ related references, citations, and fulltext pointers)
• Encyclopedia Americana,Americana Corporation of Canada{1959}-Iceland-Language
• Zuidema, W. H., The Major Transitions in the Evolution of Language, PhD thesis, Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh (2005) [6]
• Johansson, Sverker, Origins of language : constraints on hypotheses, Converging evidence in language and communication research vol. 5, Amsterdam : Benjamins (2005).
• Mithen, Steven J., The singing neanderthals : the origins of music, language, mind and body London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2005), ISBN 978-0-297-64317-3
• Partha Niyogi, The computational nature of language learning and evolution MIT Press, Current studies in linguistics 43 (2006).
• A. Carstairs-McCarthy, The evolution of language, Lingua vol. 117, issue 3 (2007, March).
• Bernd Heine, Tania Kuteva, The genesis of grammar : a reconstruction, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-922776-1, ISBN 978-0-19-922777-8.
• James R. Hurford, Language in the light of evolution, Oxford University Press, Studies in the evolution of language vol. 1 (2007).
• Atkinson QD, Meade A, Venditti C, Greenhill SJ, Pagel M (2008). "Languages evolve in punctuational bursts". Science 319 (5863): 588. doi:10.1126/science.1149683. PMID 18239118. 

Further reading

• Elvira, Javier (2009). Evolución lingüística y cambio sintáctico. Fondo Hispánico de Lingüística y Filología. Bern et al.: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783034303231. 

• Harnad, Stevan R.; Steklis, Horst D.; Lancaster, Jane, [editors] (1976). Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, v. 280. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. ISBN 0890720266. 

• Johanson, Donald C.; and Edgar, Blake (2006). From Lucy to Language (Revised, updated, and expanded ed.). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743280644. OCLC 72440476. 

• Kenneally, Christine (2007). The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York, NY: Viking. ISBN 9780670034901. OCLC 80460757. 

• Tallerman, Maggie (2005). Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199279047. OCLC 60607214. 

See also

Evolutionary biology portal

• Origin of language
• Biolinguistics

External links

• Fluid Construction Grammar
• Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh
• Sony CSL Research
• ARTI Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• ECAgents: The Project on Embodied and Communicating Agents