#language evolution
Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (HCF) wrote a paper in 2002 entitled The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? It explicitly introduced an important distinction between the Faculty of Language in the Broad Sense (FLB) and the Faculty of Language in the Narrow Sense (FLN).
FLB is made up of all the components used in language, e.g. ability for vocal learning, ability to conceptualise, a sensori-motor system, a computational system (syntax) capable of recursion etc. FLN is a subset of FLB, i.e. everything in FLN is also in FLB but not vice versa. More specifically, FLN contains only those components of FLB which are uniquely human. HCF hypothesise that FLN only contains recursion and that all other aspects of language (i.e. what constitutes the rest of FLB) can be found in non-human species.
You might not agree with HCF in terms of what to assign to FLN, but the general distinction is both useful and perhaps necessary for tackling the issue of language evolution. The first question of HCF’s title (what is it?) involves filling in the FLB category – and obviously we need to know what it is we are trying to explain the evolution of! The second question (who has it?) involves deciding whether something belongs to FLN as well. If we put something in the FLN box, we are saying it is uniquely human. This can be tested (in principle – how easy it is to test is another matter!) and this is one place where interdisciplinary research between biology and linguistics can be very fruitful and informative. Basically, from an evolution of language perspective, we want to know what exactly (if anything) makes human language special. This then leads to the third question – we can ask how the uniquely human part of language evolved, i.e. we can ask how did FLN evolve rather than the much larger question of how did FLB evolve.
Of course, having done all that, FLN might turn out to be empty! Perhaps human language is not qualitatively different, only quantitatively different. But let’s wait to see what we find!
I have just finished reading Lenneberg’s 1967 seminal book The Biological Foundations of Language. It was, and still is, an incredibly insightful attempt to bring linguistics and biology closer together into what is currently called biolinguistics. It was also way ahead of its time in terms of the conceptual framework which underpins the biological theory of language proposed in the book. By amassing and integrating evidence from anatomy, neurology, cognitive science, evolutionary theory, developmental biology, child language acquisition, semantics, phonology and syntax, Lenneberg creates a theory of language based on a few far-reaching principles.
First, language is viewed as a species-specific behaviour. Every species is different in terms of how they develop and mature. To the extent that behaviour is based on neurophysiological properties of the organism and that neurophysiology is a product of species-specific paths of development and maturation, language can be considered a species-specific behaviour resulting from the human-specific ontogenetic process. Evidence for this includes well-documented and universal milestones in language development, sometimes even in the absence of appropriate linguistic stimuli.
Second, there does not appear to be any part of the brain dedicated to language. Certainly, there are regions of the brain (and particularly of the left hemisphere) which play a more significant role in language, but in general language is well-integrated into the cerebral structure as a whole. This makes it likely that language evolved from the outset as a complex integration of many parts; it is unlikely that the subcomponents of language evolved separately and only recently became unified.
Third, language structure exhibits evidence of three basic processes: (1) categorisation, (2) differentiation, and (3) transformation. Categorisation involves generalising over stimuli, i.e. creating an abstract representation. Differentiation involves splitting categories in various ways. Transformation involves being able to identify similarities between categories, i.e. being able to identify how one category is related to another in a systematic way. Lenneberg argues that these are cognitive skills which have been integrated into the structure of language. Furthermore, because every infant effectively creates language anew, these are the processes involved in language acquisition, for example, early child utterances go through a one-word stage, followed by a two-word stage, then simple sentences etc. This potentially shows differentiation in that one-word utterances are whole child sentences. As the child differentiates the earliest syntactic category into two (say, head and modifier), we begin to observe two-word utterances etc.
Fourth, environmental triggers are necessary for the proper actualisation of one’s innate potential for language. These triggers must be available during maturation otherwise the behaviour will not develop properly, i.e. there is a critical period for (first) language acquisition. The acquisition of language is thus a matter of nature and nurture, innateness andlearning.
There are other principles which Lenneberg summarises in the final chapter, but these give a flavour of the framework in which his theory is set. Language is at its foundations a biological phenomenon, and biolinguistics can help us formulate and pursue questions to understand it in a more insightful and informed way.
there is a thing irritating me about that vocabulary test thing all “oh you scored high so you are ~allowed~ to make new words” and like…thats not how that works
everyonemakes new words. the ones that catch and stick around have more to do with how useful others find them than the prior knowledge of those who made it.
like ffs “yeet” entered the internet’s vocabulary from a video of a black teen throwing a can. like the same people getting all snooty about the english language would put her and her friends at the bottom of the linguistic totem pole due to their own bigotry and yet SHE ADDED A NEW WORD TO THE LANGUAGE. it has different forms collectively agreed upon by other english speakers!
“blorbo” was from a tumblr shitpost
many of the words shakespeare himself used and was credited with “inventing” were actually already in use by the time he wrote them down, usually by “common” young women. specifically because his plays were primarily for the masses, not snooty assholes and snooty assholes exclusively. so he used their language
like you don’t have to be rich/well educated/any other criteria to add vocabulary to a language, and anything that tries to artificially create that criteria is doomed to failure. so why the fuck would you lean into that?
