Culture as a function of evolving information.

Distin (2011) argues that human culture is a function of evolving information. Specifically culture is a product of heritable information, so to understand language or cultural development requires knowledge about information that is heritable and transmitted between generations. What we inherit depends on each generation receiving the appropriate information and the means to culturally interpret and implement it in cultural life. Language as well as other cultural traits consists of information that is transmitted through evolutionary development.

Jablonka and Lamb (2005) outlined four major human traits that change by evolutionary means. Humans over the course of our development and throughout history pass on genetic, epigenetic, behavioral information, and symbolic mechanisms including language. Epigenetic information includes changes in cellular decoding that interpret genetic information so different meanings can be produced from the same strand of DNA material. Epigenetic alteration occurs through interaction with the environment. As we noted elsewhere (Larsen & Hao, 2011) we have taken note of the epigenetic changes that have occurred in the survivors of the American campaign to poison the ecology of Vietnam. Yehuda, Bierer, Schmeidler, Aferiat, Breslau and Dolan (2000), and Yehuda, Mulherin, Brand , Seckl, Marcus and Berkowitz (2005) also demonstrated epigenetic changes in holocaust survivors who carried lower cortisol levels affecting their ability to deal with stress. Recent research (Pembrey, Bygren, Kaati, Edvinsson, Northstone, Sjostrom, Golding, & Whitelaw, 2006) has also shown that a damaging prepubescent environment might influence the health of boy’s sperm. The negative effects of the epigenetic changes are carried to the next generation. Other research has demonstrated ample evidence of the transmission of epigenetic transmission of epimutations in response to environmental forces (Cavalli, & Paro, 1998; Xing, Shi, Le, Lee, Silver-Morse, & Li, 2007). However, there is no clear agreement on how long such environmental damage might be inherited by the following generations.

Throughout evolution humans have increased their odds of survival by creating niches that have been inherited by the following generations. This niche related behavior responded to the ecological challenges by creating improved means for adaptation. Since niche construction aid survival they are a heritable components also responding to natural selection pressures (Odling-Smee, Laland, & Feldman, 2003). Although there is no way to evaluate whether ecological evolution affects biology, it is possible to observe the evolutionary consequences on niche construction over time. Likewise behavioral changes also follow an evolutionary pathway with each generation modifying behavior according to past functionality and future expectations.

Language also is based on an inheritance mechanism (Distin, 2011) that allows each generation to pass the relevant linguistic rules and content to the next generation. The mechanisms for evolution are not biological, but rather systems of symbolic representations in language and also other symbolic systems that include music and mathematics. The mechanism for evolution is cultural and based on learning, but there are also genetic inheritance mechanisms without which language could not be learned in the first place. Humans are at birth genetically ready for language and posses an instinct for linguistic behavior. The culturally evolved linguistic inheritance mechanisms provide the impetus to the evolution of language and are all related at some point in the evolutionary past. Languages are therefore transmitted across linguistic pathways, independent from biological evolution, and importantly they change at a much faster pace. Psychology has an impact on the cultural transmission of languages since some information is easier to acquire and store and later retrieve from memory. All the forces of evolution have some interacting influences even if these are not immediately observable.

Geographical distance is thought a major factor in the diffusion and evolution of dialects and languages (Nerbonne & Heeringa, 2007). Variations in lexical (word) content have been demonstrated to be related to geographical distance. Simulation research using geographical distance as data points largely predict linguistic diffusion. The origin of the wave theory of diffusion started with the demonstration of important common linguistic features in Indo-European languages leading to the conclusion that all members of this language group shared a common origin (Schmidt, 1872). These communalities as we have seen can be represented by the tree like phylogenetic structure of languages, with diffusion also occurring between the branches of languages. Bloomfield (1933) proposed that the density of communication explained the process of diffusion as it produced greater frequency of communication. Density was operationalized as geographical distance and population size in Trudgill’s model (1974). Linguistic change and evolution is promoted by contact between language groups and as noted facilitated by both the size of population and proximity. These ideas of language diffusion were inspired by the physical theory of gravity where more distant objects are thought to have less gravitational influence. Likewise linguistic innovations proceed first in large population centers and from there flow toward the periphery. However, geographical distance is thought to be the more significant force in producing language evolution (Nerbonne & Hearing, 2007).

The divergence of single language families are represented by the branching tree structure associated with geographic distance. However language change in the form of dialects can also be represented as overlapping waves representing the continuum of dialects within a language population. These methodological divisions correspond to and are supported by historical facts as language divergence is either explained by migration and isolation or by population expansion over continuous territory. In language splits the branches are formed by binary splits all the way back to the ancestral proto language. A language splits when the population divides by long distance migration into additional language groups and thereafter remains isolated from other groups and the ancestral source. In summary, languages evolve through population separations geographically either through migration to distant territory, or through expansion through neighboring but continuous territory.

Continuous wave evolution describes language networks showing the relationships between subgroups of language family speakers yielding a dialect continuum. This occurs when a language population move into continuous territory and as a result maintain some degree of contact. Contacts are more likely between groups relatively close geographically and dialects will therefore largely correspond to distance. More divergence in dialects can be expected at extreme points from origin that roughly correspond to waves that cut across and overlap language dialects. A language family provides clues of the historical and linguistic record of the past and the mechanism that caused divergence in both language and also dialects.

Language evolution does not just occur by some mysterious mechanism within a language, but rather by the geographical distance caused by socio-political struggles and cultural dissatisfaction. The persecution of religious groups in Europe encouraged long distance migration into the Americas and the continuous territory of the U.S. ensured that dialects represented wave evolution of language in recent history. Research using simulation to unravel the linguistic history of Germanic languages shows that it is possible to test phylogenetic and wave models of language diffusion (Heggarty, Maguire, & McMahon, 2010). The major conclusion is that the opportunity for social contact expressed by geographical distance account for significant amounts of linguistic variation.

5.16 How did language evolve?

Linguists generally agree that humans have an innate capacity for language. However, since we all broadly share the same genetic codes, language differences can obviously not be attributed to genetic variations between language speakers. The main debate concerning the genetic origin of language is the presence of universals that appear from the analysis of many languages (Kirby, 2007). Evolutionary linguists believe that language differences do not emerge from biology, but rather from evolution in the domain of languages. Chomsky and others have however suggested that children have an innate knowledge of universal grammar that dominates any language spoken and this biological inheritance ensures that children can learn language easily with comprehension. However, Chomsky denies that language development follow a separate Darwinian selection process suggesting instead that language may have evolved from a selection process among other preexisting abilities. On the other hand Pinker and Bloom (1990) concluded that specialization for language is apparent in the complex design of human language and the syntactic rules that emerged evolved from biological adaptation.

Most linguists think human language capacity evolved based on important pre-adaptations that included the ability to represent reality cognitively. Physiological change in the brain and face musculature, and especially the social nature of our species were important selective adaptations that supported language development. Most fundamentally, the origin of language comes from the inherent human instinct for cooperation. As a species we learned early in evolution to solve problems regarding the ecology and niches by cooperating with others thereby advancing socio-cognitive skills (Distin, 2011). While other primates are able to learn and cooperate only humans are capable of selective imitation based on motivation for learned behavior.

Distin notes that from the very beginning human infants display a conformity bias through which they learn arbitrary elements of human behavior, but also rational behaviors that lead to desirable goals. The human infant also appears to be born with an instinct to recognize human adults as models for imitation from whom to absorb the cultural and linguistic norms of the society. Distin argues that without an instinct for conformity language learning would not occur nor other aspects of human psychology. For example, language has important identity functions since they first of all convey social norms, but also serve to promote cultural cohesion. Language is the way by which people know their cultural group identity and therefore also serve as a means of identifying people belonging to our ingroup with whom we are more likely to cooperate compared to members of culturally competitive groups. We are less likely to cooperate with those whose language is unfamiliar, even when some of the barriers to communication are removed.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 761