Questions tagged [evolutionary-linguistics]
Study of the origin and development of languages.
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Are some languages more advanced than others?
I have read about animal communication, particularly in mammals and historical evidence in early hominoids. Naturally, I am always amazed how much information species like dolphins and orcas can ...
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Are "txt-speak" and "emoticons" examples of normal language evolution?
"txt-speak" appeared because of the need to fit a communication into 160 characters.
"Emoticons" appeared due to the need to convey an emotional context with your message so that it is read correctly ...
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Monogenesis vs. Polygenesis
By following the comments to another question about the evolution of Khoisan languages, I learned that there is a heated debate in Evolutionary Linguistics about the origin of language. Some quick ...
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From an evolutionary (language) standpoint, of what use are homonyms?
A homonym is a word which shares the same pronunciation as another word or words, but has a different spelling, e.g. "to", "too", "two".
I wonder why languages have homonyms in the first place. What ...
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Do atonal languages have a tonal ancestor?
One of the distinctions among languages is the tonal/atonal distinction. Dediu & Ladd (2007) suggest that this split between tonal and atonal languages is related to a recent mutation in the ASPM ...
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Charles Hockett - 'F' article?
In the Guardian, there is an article on cultural determinants of phonological feature choice. A recent article in Science supposedly supports the hypothesis that the existence of labiodental ...
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