15 July 2022

Evolving (part 4) - the language dance

Parody on the March of Progress
The Evolving series began by looking at Darwin's ground-breaking theory of 'descent with modification' to explain biodiversity in organic lifeforms. In parts 2 and 3, we explored how people have misinterpreted and misused his work ever since, including loading it with various moral judgements. 

Our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution reveals that we¹ think of evolution as purposeful and progressive improvement (a contradiction of Darwin's theory) but also natural and scientific. This (mis)interpretation provides what I call a 'sciencey veneer' over any number of beliefs.

We think of 'evolutionary progress' as how the world works. This understanding is so widely shared it is a common meme. 

So, I'm finally back to my starting point for exploring the words evolve and evolution: what do we mean when we say that language 'evolves'? Why don't we just say that language changes? Is language change like biological evolution? Are we saying that language improves and progresses over time? 

Unsurprisingly, the answers are not straightforward! 

A startling starting assumption 

The 'story of evolutionary progress' infiltrates many areas of scientific thinking. It is known as Universal Darwinism: extending Darwin's theory beyond the scope of explaining biodiversity. It can be found in schools of thought in psychology, economics, medicine, sociology, technology, computer science, physics, linguistics and more.

This approach is based on assuming that all change happens through processes analogous to 'descent with modification'. It assumes the existence of processes analogous to natural variation, selection and inheritance to explain change in these other domains. It entails looking for components analogous to genes, populations, environmental change, and speciation (emergence of new species). (In Part 3, I mentioned the idea of the 'meme' in cultural studies as analogous to the 'gene' in biological studies.) 

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889

It also assumes a straight line of changes can be drawn back into time. It sometimes also incorporates assumptions of improvement and progress over time to 'higher' states (for example in sociology and digital technology). 

Well, this starting assumption could be a problem: it leads researchers to look for the evidence that supports it. Like Dawkins' 'meme', they may well 'find' it. 

What do we mean when we say language evolves?

So, when we hear about the 'evolution of language' and 'language evolving', that means we assume language emergence and change is like biological evolution. 

You will have seen statements like this from a Buzzfeed article: Languages, like living things, evolve. 

So to start: language is like living things? Is language alive? Well, not like a fish or a virus. It's a metaphor: by living we mean dynamic and changing, not animate or breathing. But it's a first step to justifying evolutionary thinking in linguistics.

Language 'evolving' is used in (at least) four very different ways. These are 1) the evolutionary theories about the emergence of language as a human biological capacity, 2) the emergence of language 'species' over millennia, 3) change within a language over generations, and 4) change in a language over an individual's lifetime.

I will deal with these four aspects separately. 

The human biological capacity

Source

In terms of evolution, language is not a 'thing' or a 'species'; it is the brain capacity for language learning and the vocal tract capacity for speaking. Skeletal remains cannot help identify when humans first used these capacities, as while the fossil record shows the homo brain and vocal tract changed over time, there is no clear link between these biological changes and the specific human neural structures for language or the capacity to articulate sounds. 

So, unlike biological life forms, language doesn't leave direct fossil evidence.²  The human capacity for language is found in soft tissue, so there will always be conjecture. 

In the absence of direct evidence, Darwin proposed his ideas (see image) in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 

It's an idea, but it cannot be tested. 

Research suggests the origin of spoken language around 50,000–150,000 years ago, the period when Homo sapiens emerged as a species. Estimates are based on cultural artefacts and limited physical evidence about social arrangements - the emergence of living in large social groups and longer periods of caregiving. This leads to the hypothesis that whatever 'evolutionary pressures' led to modern human social behaviours also led to the emergence of language. But there is little agreement about this connection. 

Due to the lack of direct evidence in fossils, evolutionary linguistics uses inferences, cultural evidence, studies of language acquisition, computational biological modelling and research with artificial languages. Each of these sources of information has its own assumptions about language and about humans.

It's an area rich with conjecture.

We cannot determine how the capacity for learning language emerged in humans - academics can theorise, but without any evidence or way to test those theories, they can be little more than justification for that person's starting assumptions about human language evolution.

We might have a preferred theory³, but who really knows? No one. 

The emergence of new language 'species' over millennia

Click to see enlarged at the source
The second way we use 'language evolving' is to refer to the development of new languages from a shared ancestral language. This treats a language as a thing in itself (distinct from above where it is a capacity). In this field, at least there is some evidence. 

The idea of language 'evolving' over time leading to new language 'species' is so entrenched in our thinking that it seems to make sense. We even use evolutionary trees. 

Evidence exists for language groups (families) and the emergence of new languages over the last few millennia. But before that, not so. There is no direct evidence of the assumed shared 'ancestral' language known as Proto-Indo-European. This language is 'reconstructed'. That is, its assumed features are based on comparing the features of contemporary languages and their common 'ancestors', and extrapolating backwards to infer the properties of the single common ancestor. 

Does that sound familiar?

Anyway, these teleological speculations are not really a concern to me.

What is concerning is the implications of assuming a straight line of linguistic 'evolution'. It leads to work to determine the components and processes in language that are analogous to genes, variation, inheritance and natural selection (and some like to put 'survival of the fittest' in there). 

In what way is a gene like a word? Well, they are both observable units. But you can't say that a gene's relationship to an expressed characteristic is anything like a word's relationship to language. 

It's also a bizarre removal of intentional human actions in using language and words. Slang just 'mutates'? The analogy of words with genes as 'heritable units' then falls over with vague de-contextualised concepts as analogies for selection and inheritance. It's a real stretch. 

Using biological evolution as an analogy for the emergence of new language 'species' grossly simplifies what language is for humans. It involves distorting the meanings of technical words from biological evolution (e.g. competing and heritable forms, mutation, natural selection, etc.) to make them fit 'language evolution'.

To me, it's an example of a starting assumption leading to 'finding' the evidence for it. 

I don't think it reflects what languages (and words) are to humans.  

The creation of a new language 'species' results from deliberate human social innovations in language over generations combined with the movement of humans into new and isolated territory where they continue these deliberate social innovations and language changes. 

But it's not evolution. 

Change within a language over generations

I am not disputing that a language will change over time. 

We are all familiar with the idea that our English words have changed over the centuries, with examples in familiar prayers or the days of the week. 

Language change is fascinating. But is biological evolution as an analogy for this change valid or helpful?

Let's take one example: if one considers that words are analogous to genes, then it's not much of a leap to consider the mistakes and changes that people make with words as analogous to mutations in genes. These mistakes 'generate' new 'words' and therefore we see 'language evolution'. 

For example, this study suggests that, just like biological evolution, linguistic evolution involves a lot of random variations. They equate learning language with inheritance of genes and say they both language and genes 'evolve' by transmission over generations with 'differential replication of forms'. That means that greater use of certain words ensures those words... um... survive to reproduce?! 

Sure mistakes and random changes happen. But equivalent to genetic mutation? I don't think so. 

A recent example is the emergence of the word pwned which is most likely mistaken typing of the word owned. Idiosyncratic random change, yes. But it didn't happen in isolation. It was preceded by a deliberate innovation within online gaming culture that changed the meaning of the word owned from 'possessing' to 'beating or surpassing'. Innovation based on humans engaging in social interaction for the purpose of winning a game as a form of domination. This meaning of owned is now more broadly used outside gaming where domination is considered desirable. 

Multiply pwned by millions of humans motivated to use language for various social purposes and you get language change. Humans change language deliberately. 

The linguistic evolution approach involves ignoring a whole lot of information that we know about language change in an individual's lifetime that accumulates into larger numbers of changes over generations (and then possibly to new language over millennia).  

Language change in a lifetime

Much more often than mistakes and random change, innovations in language and words comes from intentional human activity.

Shakespeare is renowned for introducing hundreds of new words and phrases into the English language. Many of these may have been in the contemporary street slang or in popular culture and Shakespeare's plays formalised them; others he made up himself for poetic or literary purposes. 

But we all do it. In fact, we often signal to others when we create new words (like agitprop), shift the meaning of existing words in response to new technology (like computer), or more commonly, change the use of words in response to the social context (like texas in the example above from just last week). The word texas meaning 'out of control' may catch on; only time will tell. I'll be using it!


It's part of our humanity; we are creative. We love to play with words in creative ways to connect with others. We tell others we are doing so. And in the process, we change the language. 

At the time, it is a social process. Only in retrospect can we see the major changes in words at a recorded dictionary level. 

In processes unlike mutation, for example the words awful and fizzle stayed the same and the meaning changed. This does not align with the idea that words are analogous units to 'genes'; in contrast the word 'unit' stays the same and meaning is changed. I think the evolutionary analogy fizzles. 

These processes involve intentional agents making a change for a purpose. Not evolution (although a common misinterpretation of evolution). 

There are innumerable such social drivers for language change during a person's life. One major social driver is what I call the KOTO function - Keeping Out The Oldies. 

KOTO involves young people creating new words (like yeet, crunk, hangry) and changing the meaning of existing words (like sick, cheddar, GOAT), creating an 'in group' language code that functions as an important social bond, while effectively keeping older people (especially parents) out. 

Some of these new words (derided initially as slang) become more broadly used, even by 'the oldies', and no longer achieve the KOTO function. At this point they stop being used by young people, who create new variations to replace them. 

Changing words and language is a constant human activity. 

The human need for privacy and connection drives these sorts of change. However, I think the main reason humans change words and language is because they can. It's fun.

That's not evolutionary at all.

Moralising about language 

Click to enlarge
The mechanisms of evolution provide a great explanation for biodiversity of life forms. However, evolution - distorted to mean 'progress over time' - has become THE only 'scientific' way to understand the world.⁴ 

How ironic that its use is anything but scientific! 

Such is the power of the 'evolutionary progress' story through which we understand the world, that we can ignore evidence that doesn't fit. 

But there is one way in which the distorted story of the theory of evolution is a lot like language change - the human tendency to make moral judgements about the value of different languages. 

The example to the right explores the tendency of speakers of Standard American English (one dialect of English) to judge speakers of another dialect of English (in this case, African American Vernacular English) and complain it is incorrect, lazy, bad, sloppy, agrammatical, etc. 

But why is it 'bad'? It stems from a judgement made in the 1600s by those writing English language reference texts. They believed that Latin was the ideal language and English should be just like it. They judged English to be superior to other contemporaneous languages. So, judging a dialect (and speakers of that dialect) as inferior is the outcome of a belief and judgement about the value of language, even though what is considered Standard English has changed incredibly since that time. 

Moralising also happens when people make value judgements about language change and innovation - both for and against change. You'll no doubt have heard, 'Why can't people just use correct English?'

On one side are the folk despairing of 'deterioration' and the potential 'extinction' of the English language (and negatively judging, for example, young people's 'sloppy' use of words). On the other side are those who use 'evolution is natural' as a celebration of the nature of language change, but sometimes as an excuse for their careless use of words. 

Source

Evolution is not the common thread here; the human propensity to judge and exclude others is. 

The 'evolution' of the word evolution

In Part 2, I explained that Darwin didn't use the existing word evolution in his work because the word already meant 'progression toward perfection' - a concept in complete conflict with his ideas.

However, now, outside of biology, the word evolution is no longer understood as a theory for the emergence of species, but a carrier for the 'time-as-progress' belief.

In popular culture, the words evolution and progress are synonyms.

But the word evolution didn't evolve; humans changed it for their personal and social purposes. 

Many of Darwin's contemporaries twisted his ideas so they could integrate them into their existing beliefs about progress; a sciencey veneer over these beliefs. They changed the meaning of the word. 

But this wasn't enough for some biologists in the late 1800s who rejected 'natural selection', and came up with the word orthogenesis to describe the process of life forms evolving in a specific direction towards a goal due to some internal 'driving force'. 

While considered an obsolete theory by most biologists now, orthogenesis lives on in our everyday understanding of evolution. 

Orthogenesis is made up two Greek root words: ortho- meaning 'correct', right and genesis meaning  'origin'. It's useful to have such a word. Humans created it for a purpose (it didn't evolve!) and now I can use it for my own. 

When people say, 'Evolution is a belief', this is what they mean. When we read or hear the words evolving or evolution, we can check if the person speaking means 'descent with modification' (the scientific theory) or orthogenesis (the belief in change as progress toward a goal).⁵ You'll notice it everywhere once you look.

Evolution and evolving are words with a specific technical meaning loaded with a whole lot of values and assumptions. They carry the belief in 'time-as-progress' that has numerous damaging impacts. The assumption that biological evolution is analogous to change in other areas such as culture, societies and language has limited and shaped how evidence has been interpreted in these fields. 

We could say this misuse is part of the 'evolution' of language, lol.😁😉😁😜 But that would be wrong.

A better analogy for language change

My very brief exploration of how language changes shows the analogy with biological evolution to be superficial, flawed and invalid. The critical distinguishing factor is human agency. Language change is not from random mutation, but intentional action to meet a range of human needs.  

We say language is alive as a metaphor for being dynamic and changing. But it's not an organic life form to which we can apply Darwin's theory. Combine the metaphoric use of alive and the analogy with evolving and we end up talking rubbish. 

Is there a better analogy than evolution? My preferred analogy is dancing: language change is something people do within groups of people, for social purposes and often for fun, creativity and connection. Humans are also wont to judge other people's dancing.

Language change is the expression of the social interaction of humans. 

So, from a Wordly Explorations viewpoint, organic lifeforms evolve, societies adapt and change (they don't evolve), individuals, musicians, businesspeople, etc. develop and change (they don't evolve), and language, it dances. 

Sometimes it even dresses in feathers and cavorts. 


Footnotes

  1. By 'we', I mean our everyday use of words and what they reveal about humans; unless I make it obvious, I'm not commenting on scientific use.
  2. At least not until the emergence of writing. But then of course, who got to write, and what they wrote about is a factor in what that evidence reveals. 
  3. I'm happy to admit to a preferred theory for the emergence of language as a system of meaning making! I find merit in Darwin's idea about 'instinctive cries' - the involuntary sounds we all make associated with certain physical and emotional states which also serve as important messages to others. These are the sounds we make when we recognise danger, experience distress or disgust or pleasant surprise, seek soothing or comfort, and enjoy a reward or success at an activity. Ah, erg, eek, mmm are all meaningful non-words that could easily have become 'meaning carriers' within social arrangements with cooperation and information sharing. The relationship between spoken language and emotions is close and intricate with contemporary research showing that all aspects of humans spoken language communicates emotion - sounds, words, sentences and conversation (Majid, 2012).  But I don't assume the emergence of language necessarily involved speech sounds, it could well have been gestural or symbol/icon based, which have the advantage (over speaking) of being able to be held/viewed over a longer time period. Sound could have been mapped on later.  But who really knows? No one. My ideas are entirely conjecture.
  4. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, 2021 by David Graeber and David Wengrow, Published by Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin Books).
  5. This is also sometimes called 'evolutionism', but that term is confusing due to its use by the Creation Scientists to refute evolutionary theory. Orthogenesis is much more clear about the belief component. Text directly from Wikipedia: Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or "driving force". According to the theory, the largest-scale trends in evolution have an absolute goal such as increasing biological complexity. Prominent historical figures who have championed some form of evolutionary progress include Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Henri Bergson. The term orthogenesis was introduced by Wilhelm Haacke in 1893 and popularized by Theodor Eimer five years later. Proponents of orthogenesis had rejected the theory of natural selection as the organizing mechanism in evolution for a rectilinear model of directed evolution. With the emergence of the modern synthesis, in which genetics was integrated with evolution, orthogenesis and other alternatives to Darwinism were largely abandoned by biologists, but the notion that evolution represents progress is still widely shared; modern supporters include E. O. Wilson and Simon Conway Morris. The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr made the term effectively taboo in the journal Nature in 1948, by stating that it implied "some supernatural force". The American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1953) attacked orthogenesis, linking it with vitalism by describing it as "the mysterious inner force". Despite this, many museum displays and textbook illustrations continue to give the impression that evolution is directed. The philosopher of biology Michael Ruse notes that in popular culture, evolution and progress are synonyms, while the unintentionally misleading image of the March of Progress, from apes to modern humans, has been widely imitated. 

Images (sources where available used under Creative Commons, but more snipped from the hundreds of social media posts about how we change language that I saw within a few weeks)

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