Questions tagged [evolutionary-linguistics]
Study of the origin and development of languages.
33
questions
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4answers
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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 ...
12
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6answers
5k views
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 ...
12
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2answers
1k views
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 ...
11
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1answer
637 views
Where did the discussion of the language faculty between Fitch, Hauser, Chomsky and Pinker and Jackendoff terminate?
Many of you may be familiar with the debate between FHC and PJ on the language faculty. The "discussion", which became quite heated, first appeared as PJ's response to an article in Science that was ...
9
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2answers
750 views
What is the “first language”?
I vaguely remember reading an article about a book that talked about what the "first language" would have consisted of, but I can't seem to recall what the book was or what the language was called. ...
9
votes
2answers
759 views
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 ...
8
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3answers
773 views
Why are spoken languages more common than signed languages?
As I understand, there is no essential difference between spoken and signed languages. Both have the same kinds of phonetic, morphological, syntactical and semantic complexities, both are prone to ...
8
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5answers
1k views
Did a “cave man-style” language ever exist?
I recently had a discussion with a friend about whether a "cave man-style" language was likely to have ever existed. You know, the stereotypical "Fire bad! Need hunt, go tree-place now!" sort of ...
6
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1answer
1k views
Did Hebrew writing evolve from Egyptian hieroglyphs?
I read somewhere that the Hebrew writing system evolved from Egyptian pictographs. If that's the case, have anyone read about records that trace exact evolution from a pictograph to a Hebrew letter, ...
6
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1answer
104 views
How is the rate of evolution of a language measured?
Have linguists measured the rate of evolution of a language by analyzing the rate of change of the language's words' usages over time? Is there a term for this sort of measurement?
For example, ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How fast is the number of languages spoken today decreasing/increasing?
Speciation and extinction
From one ancestral language (e.g. latin), several languages are born (e.g. spanish, portuguese, french, italian, romanian, ...). Languages therefore speciate. Such ...
5
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2answers
275 views
Boustrophedonism effects
From the looks of it Boustrophedon texts should be more efficient to read. However, I can't find any modern day research regarding its effects and reasons why it would have fallen out of use in ...
4
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1answer
159 views
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 ...
4
votes
2answers
247 views
When some people spoke proto-XX, what did other people speak?
Tracing back in time through the language hierarchy, I imagine that geographical areas where ancestors of existing "alive" languages were spoken will narrow in, leaving lots of gaps (Since for ...
4
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0answers
163 views
Onomatopoeia origin of language?
Are there any "modern scholars" that support the onomatopoeia origin of language hypothesis?
3
votes
3answers
158 views
Why not just use demonstratives instead of determiners
Along the same lines as Understanding the purpose of determiners/articles/demonstratives in language, wondering why not just use demonstratives everywhere instead of determiners. It looks like the is ...
3
votes
1answer
131 views
What's this punctuating feature of some peoples' English?
What exactly is the name and nature of this odd bit of consistent yet seemingly redundant English found in many forms of colloquial English:
"She gave me dates, she did!"
"The little lads ran home, ...
3
votes
2answers
219 views
Is the evolution & development of language better described by Deleuze concept of the rhizome than the traditional tree?
I originally asked this question on philosophy.stackexchange, but the consensus was that this was better asked here
Deleuze & Guattari introduce the idea of the rhizome in their text A thousand ...
2
votes
3answers
197 views
If speech language was before written language, isn't non verbal before speech?
I'm reading "Introducing Phonetic Science" by Michael Ashby and John Maidment and they say:
Speech is the original channel for which human language evolved and all written languages have (or once ...
2
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2answers
71 views
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 ...
2
votes
1answer
426 views
What is the origin of declension/conjugation classes?
Languages with declension and conjugation usually have multiple declension and conjugation classes.
If one were to invent a language with declension or conjugation, one would probably introduce only ...
2
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0answers
43 views
Do we have any evidence or research on the linguistic evolution of idioms?
Do we have any evidence or research on the linguistic evolution of idioms?
For example, if two languages in the same language family have idioms with a similar meaning, is it likely that such an ...
2
votes
0answers
86 views
Considering languages evolved over time, what could be the initial dataset?
If I assume evolution of language took place over time, I am curious as to what can be the initial population of words or syllable or anything.
Lets say I am about to write a algorithm to evolve ...
1
vote
1answer
238 views
Why and how do some words come to mean multiple completely unrelated things?
Take an example of the English word 'just'.
While it means 'morally fair' in "a just social system", it also means 'a little' in "just less than 8%".
For a myriad of colourful meanings of 'just', ...
1
vote
1answer
32 views
Phoneme production metrics
(Apologies in advance for the expected misuse of terminology; I am not a linguist. Please correct as appropriate.)
I am considering a Deep Learning language evolution experiment and would like to ...
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0answers
108 views
New Scientist Article on Spoken Language? [closed]
I wondered if anyone had seen this article on Relational Frame Theory in the most recent edition of the New Scientist? It reports an active laboratory based research programme: https://www....
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0answers
36 views
Are Biological and Linguistic Evolution Similar? [duplicate]
Natural selection, based on Darwin's theories, states that organisms with characteristics that benefit survival survive while the weaker, less adapted individuals are weeded out.
Languages also ...
0
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1answer
89 views
How does lexical replacement occur?
For example, in Mycenaean Greek, the word for king was Wanax or Anax, whereas the Modern Greek word for king is Basileus, nothing at all like Wanax. How did this happen & how do these kinds of ...
0
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0answers
47 views
Where do nominal sentences (null/lacking verb sentences) come from and what does their existence imply?
Nominal sentence is a grammatical feature of some languages that a grammatical correct sentence can have no explicit verb. The implicit verb at least in Arabic is simple present form of 'to be', e.g. ...
0
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0answers
74 views
What stages of emergence of linguistic features are proposed among the world of scholars?
In biology, there is a simple two stages distinction of the emergence of life:
Abiogenesis, the emergence of a (very simple) life form from non-living matter.
Evolution, the further emergence of ...
-1
votes
3answers
639 views
What are the counterpart of Genotype and phenotype in a language?
Considering that languages evolved just as species did complying with Darwin Natural Selection, what are the Genotype and phenotype when it comes to languages?
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2answers
3k views
Is language scientific? [closed]
Is language itself scientific?
Is language, grammar, standardized, and prescriptive, made by scientific methods?
Are rules, standards, repetitions and patterns of how we speak and right so well ...
-7
votes
2answers
121 views
Where does the Afro branch of the Semitic language originate? [closed]
I require information to help solve a problem.
The problem i am trying to solve, is the problem of the Semitic language.
Semitic language
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages, previously also ...
