http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...210614.htm

"Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language."

Source: Restrictions on Biological Adaptation in Language Evolution

Bonus: Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure

I think the news article slightly misrepresents the study; the study is not really overturning the idea that language has a genetic basis -- the first sentence of the abstract is "Language acquisition and processing are governed by genetic constraints." The paper is more about how language evolved and how those genetic constraints arose, which is still a major open-ended research area in linguistics.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think the news article slightly misrepresents the study; the study is not really overturning the idea that language has a genetic basis -- the first sentence of the abstract is "Language acquisition and processing are governed by genetic constraints." The paper is more about how language evolved and how those genetic constraints arose, which is still a major open-ended research area in linguistics.

The article is accurate in restating the paper's conclusions, which is that the foundation and evolution of language occurs through a much more general biological foundation and cultural processes, rather than a language module or language genes. I think this parsimonious perspective is the most open and flexible, allowing for more accurate, compromising theories to be negotiated (which is why I'm fond of emergentism/embodied cognition as a foundational framework).

There's an article in Nestor's link confirming that we lose some of our native language while we study a second language. Apparently, it's temporary. Phew! I was starting to think I was suffering the adverse effects of my word hard/play hard 20s.

Nestor, I noticed this relatively new initiative at UBC (British Columbia) and thought it might interest you: Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture.

Recent workshop (with videos): Integrating Science and the Humanities. “the sort of mind-body dualism that informs the sharp divide between the “two cultures” of the natural sciences and the humanities is no longer plausible in light of recent discoveries about human cognition.”

Their first course (Asian Studies)Understanding Humans: An Integrated Approach.

Edward Slingerland: Chinese thought and embodied cognition.

Thora Wrote:There's an article in Nestor's link confirming that we lose some of our native language while we study a second language. Apparently, it's temporary. Phew! I was starting to think I was suffering the adverse effects of my word hard/play hard 20s.

Kinda unrelated, but lately I've noticed that when my mom calls, I see 'Mom' on the phone and think '母さん！' ... And I've been really close a couple times to answering the phone in Japanese.

Don't know how it works, but that's probably a good sign. :-) btw, I obviously meant to say "work" hard, not "word" hard. What an appropriate mistake. haha

Thora Wrote:There's an article in Nestor's link confirming that we lose some of our native language while we study a second language. Apparently, it's temporary. Phew! I was starting to think I was suffering the adverse effects of my word hard/play hard 20s.

Nestor, I noticed this relatively new initiative at UBC (British Columbia) and thought it might interest you: Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture.

Recent workshop (with videos): Integrating Science and the Humanities. “the sort of mind-body dualism that informs the sharp divide between the “two cultures” of the natural sciences and the humanities is no longer plausible in light of recent discoveries about human cognition.”

Their first course (Asian Studies)Understanding Humans: An Integrated Approach.

Edward Slingerland: Chinese thought and embodied cognition.

Looks interesting, and a lot of my favourite thinkers at the moment are cross-discipline in this way (speculative realism) but at the same time I try to sidestep evopsychos (evolutionary psychologists) who try to read Pride and Prejudice by attributing sexual selection factors to the actions of the characters, so that I don't get arrested for throttling them. So, not real sure which side of that line Henrich and Slingerland are on, some of their references to cognitive science tell me they might be a bit more realistic than the latter example, but I saw that trouble phrase 'evolutionary psychology' and the whole idea of speaking broadly of 'the humanities' troubles me...

Thanks for the links, I'll look into that last page's articles...

Yea i've been noticing sometimes i stumble on english words that i didn't before. I guess japanese is kicking more than english. I probably try to listen to japanese more than english if possible.

Oh yeah, 'first-language attrition', that's a good label that makes me feel better about my erratic English skills. I was going to blame it on the writing voice I use for this forum. ;p I think Thora was right though, re: past Pessoa references, I seem to have more brain-glitches these days, too many aliases.