tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/language-evolution-33304/articlesLanguage evolution – The Conversation2023-08-17T20:10:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117322023-08-17T20:10:07Z2023-08-17T20:10:07ZDo languages become less complex with more new adult speakers? Research shows it’s not that simple<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543151/original/file-20230817-25-s3whx1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4935%2C3951&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_(Bruegel)#/media/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Rotterdam)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg">Pieter Bruegel the Elder / Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve ever seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian, you might remember that <em>Romanes eunt domus</em> means “Romans go home”. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum">Or does it?</a> Isn’t <em>domus</em> the nominative? Shouldn’t we be using the dative? Or is it the accusative? </p>
<p>Grammar is very complicated, especially if you are learning a new language. And if lots of people have to learn a new language, wouldn’t it be easier to make things simpler?</p>
<p>This is an intriguing idea linguists have previously proposed: languages lots of people learn as adults should tend to change over time to have simpler grammar, to accommodate the needs of learners who lack children’s sponge-like facility for picking up a new lingo.</p>
<p>However, in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf7704">a new study in Science Advances</a>, we analysed more than 1,200 languages to show this idea is not true, dashing the hopes of language learners worldwide.</p>
<h2>How many words for ‘the dog’ do you need?</h2>
<p>The theory of grammatical simplicity and non-native speakers has thrived because it seems intuitively reasonable. </p>
<p>Just as more non-native speakers should lead to simpler grammar, languages primarily spoken by native speakers should become more complex. This is because children can readily learn arbitrary grammatical rules and, as we collectively become more familiar with a language, we can encode more information in language more efficiently. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-assume-writing-systems-get-simpler-but-3-600-years-of-chinese-writing-show-its-getting-increasingly-complex-194732">Most assume writing systems get simpler. But 3,600 years of Chinese writing show it’s getting increasingly complex</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For example, in the relatively isolated language of Iceland, there are three different word forms for “the dog”, depending on what the dog is doing in a given sentence: <em>hundurinn</em>, <em>hundinn</em> and <em>hundinum</em> (the nominative, accusative, and dative forms, respectively). But speakers of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian, three countries historically in more regular contact with each other, simply use <em>hunden</em> in all scenarios. </p>
<p>It’s nice to think we can bend our language rules to accommodate newcomers and neighbours. But is this example just an anecdote, or does it indicate a universal feature of language change where languages evolve in different ways depending on who speaks them?</p>
<h2>Putting the theory to the test</h2>
<p>To test this theory we used a global database of grammatical features called <a href="https://grambank.clld.org/">Grambank</a>.</p>
<p>From the database, we created two measures of grammatical complexity for each language: <em>fusion</em>, which depends on how much the language uses features such as prefixes and suffixes, and <em>informativity</em>, which shows how many pieces of grammatical information must be present for sentences to make sense. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A figure containing two world maps dotted with coloured circles, one showing 'Fusion' and the other showing 'Informativity'. Some language names are marked on the maps. There is also a branching diagram showing relationships among the Uralic languages." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543128/original/file-20230817-27-7snpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The distribution of two measures of language complexity, fusion (A) and informativity (B), across the global sample of more than 1,200 languages. (C) The distribution of grammatical informativity scores across the family of Uralic languages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf7704">Shcherbakova et al. / Science Advances</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using these measures, we modelled the relationship between complexity, social and demographic factors (such as numbers of native and non-native speakers), and language status (such as whether the language is a national language or is used in education). </p>
<p>We also took into account the historical origins of languages. For example, French and Italian are similar because both descended from Latin. This process creates “trees” of languages, like the picture of the Uralic languages family above.</p>
<h2>Grammar changes more slowly than populations</h2>
<p>Our results show how language complexity evolved alongside the number of native – and non-native – speakers of each language. Contrary to the hypothesis, it seems that changes in grammatical complexity are too slow to be affected by the ebbs and flows of new adult speakers. </p>
<p>A good example of this is German, which is learned and spoken by a large number of non-native speakers who must navigate its case system, three genders, verbal agreement, and a multitude of other grammatical distinctions. For example, anyone learning German needs to remember whether every single noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter, like the feminine fork (<em>die Gabel</em>), the masculine spoon (<em>der Löffel</em>), and the neuter knife (<em>das Messer</em>).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-on-2-400-languages-shows-nearly-half-the-worlds-language-diversity-is-at-risk-204014">Research on 2,400 languages shows nearly half the world's language diversity is at risk</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Instead, we found the patterns of grammatical complexity we observe today are more likely to have arisen through a combination of historical language change and contact with other languages. </p>
<p>Our study shows how large-scale datasets and rigorous methods can shed new light on long-standing questions about what makes grammar more or less complex. </p>
<p>And although we found no evidence for the impact of non-native language speakers on grammatical complexity, there are still many more questions to explore about how social and demographic changes might influence the way we communicate with each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea a language should grow simpler if people need to learn it as adults has an intuitive appeal. But an analysis of more than 1,200 languages shows this doesn’t quite stack up.Sam Passmore, Research Fellow, Evolution of Cultural Diversity Initiative, Australian National UniversityOlena Shcherbakova, Doctoral Researcher, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologySimon Greenhill, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1285142019-12-11T19:03:31Z2019-12-11T19:03:31ZExamining how primates make vowel sounds pushes timeline for speech evolution back by 27 million years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306429/original/file-20191211-95149-1bal81j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=303%2C720%2C4251%2C2916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Baboons make sounds, but how does it relate to human speech?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/baboon-relaxed-sitting-tree-1536555830?studio=1">Creative Wrights/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sound doesn’t fossilize. Language doesn’t either.</p>
<p>Even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing">when writing systems have developed</a>, they’ve represented full-fledged and functional languages. Rather than preserving the first baby steps toward language, they’re fully formed, made up of words, sentences and grammar carried from one person to another by speech sounds, like any of the perhaps <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434">6,000 languages spoken today</a>.</p>
<p>So if you believe, as we linguists do, that language is the foundational distinction between humans and other intelligent animals, how can we study its emergence in our ancestors?</p>
<p>Happily, researchers do know a lot about language – words, sentences and grammar – and speech – the vocal sounds that carry language to the next person’s ear – in living people. So we should be able to compare language with less complex animal communication.</p>
<p>And that’s what we and our colleagues <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaaw3916">have spent decades investigating</a>: How do apes and monkeys use their mouth and throat to produce the vowel sounds in speech? Spoken language in humans is an intricately woven string of syllables with consonants appended to the syllables’ core vowels, so mastering vowels was a key to speech emergence. We believe that our multidisciplinary findings push back the date for that crucial step in language evolution by as much as 27 million years.</p>
<h2>The sounds of speech</h2>
<p>Say “but.” Now say “bet,” “bat,” “bought,” “boot.”</p>
<p>The words all begin and end the same. It’s the differences among the vowel sounds that keep them distinct in speech.</p>
<p>Now drop the consonants and say the vowels. You can hear the different vowels have characteristic sound qualities. You can also feel that they require different characteristic positions of your jaw, tongue and lips.</p>
<p>So the configuration of the vocal tract – the resonating tube of the throat and mouth, from the vocal folds to the lips – determines the sound. That in turn means that the sound carries information about the vocal tract configuration that made it. This relationship is the core understanding of speech science.</p>
<p>After over a half-century of investigation and of developing both anatomical and acoustical modeling technology, speech scientists can generally model a vocal tract and calculate what sound it will make, or run the other way, analyzing a sound to calculate what vocal tract shape made it.</p>
<p>So model a few primate vocal tracts, record a few calls, and you pretty much know how human language evolved? Sorry, not so fast.</p>
<h2>Modern human anatomy is unique</h2>
<p>If you compare the human vocal tract with other primates’, there’s a big difference. Take a baboon as an example.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306195/original/file-20191210-95173-1t2mbr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vocal tract of a baboon has the same components – including the larynx, circled in green – as that of a person, but with different proportions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology (CNRS & Aix-Marseille University) and GIPSA-lab (CNRS & University Grenoble-Alpes)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the baboon’s larynx and vocal folds, which is high up and close to their chin line, there’s just a short step up through the cavity called the pharynx, then a long way out the horizontal oral cavity. In comparison, for adult male humans, it’s about as far up the pharynx as it is then out through the lips. Also, the baboon tongue is long and flat, while a human’s is short in the mouth, then curves down into the throat.</p>
<p>So over the course of evolution, the larynx in the human line has moved lower in our throats, opening up a much larger pharyngeal cavity than found in other primates.</p>
<p>About 50 years ago, researchers seized on that observation to formulate what they called the laryngeal descent theory of vowel production. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.164.3884.1185">In a key study</a>, researchers developed a model from a plaster cast of a macaque vocal tract. They manipulated the mouth of an anesthetized macaque to see how much the vocal tract shape could vary, and fed those values into their model. Then finally they calculated the vowel sound produced by particular configurations. It was a powerful and groundbreaking study, still copied today with technological updates.</p>
<p>So what did they find?</p>
<p>They got a schwa – that vowel sound you hear in the word “but” – and some very close acoustic neighbors. Nothing where multiple vowels were distinct enough to keep words apart in a human language. They attributed it to the lack of a human-like low larynx and large pharynx.</p>
<p>As the theory developed, it claimed that producing the full human vowel inventory required a vocal tract with about equally long oral and pharyngeal cavities. That occurred only with the arrival of anatomically modern humans, about 200,000 years ago, and only adults among modern humans, since babies are born with a high larynx that lowers with age.</p>
<p>This theory seemed to explain two phenomena. First, from the 1930s on, several (failed) experiments had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.162.3852.423">raised chimpanzees in human homes</a> to try to encourage human-like behavior, particularly language and speech. If laryngeal descent is necessary for human vowels, and vowels in turn for language, then chimpanzees would never talk.</p>
<p>Second, archaeological <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity">evidence of “modern” human behavior</a>, such as jewelry, burial goods, cave painting, agriculture and settlements, seemed to start only after anatomically modern humans appeared, with their descended larynxes. The idea was that language provided increased cooperation which enabled these behaviors.</p>
<h2>Rethinking the theory with new evidence</h2>
<p>So if laryngeal descent theory says kids and apes and our earlier human ancestors couldn’t produce contrasting vowels, just schwa, then what explains, for instance, Jane Goodall’s observations of clearly contrasting vowel qualities in the <a href="https://youtu.be/BF0qIy4ZnSU">vocalizations of chimpanzees</a>?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF0qIy4ZnSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chimpanzees shift between vowel sounds before maxing out in a scream.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that kind of evidence wasn’t the end of the laryngeal descent idea. For scientists to reach agreement, especially to renounce a longstanding and useful theory, we rightly require consistent evidence, not just anecdotes or hearsay.</p>
<p>One of us (L.-J. Boë) has spent upward of two decades assembling that case against laryngeal descent theory. The multidisciplinary team effort has involved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2014.07.002">articulatory and acoustic modeling</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2013.04.001">child language research</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jpho.2002.0170">paleontology</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3726/b12405">primatology</a> and more. </p>
<p>One of the key steps was our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169321">study of the baboon “vowel space.”</a> We recorded over 1,300 baboon calls and analyzed the acoustics of their vowel-like parts. Results showed that the vowel quality of certain calls was equivalent to known human vowels.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306253/original/file-20191211-95138-1hyal6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A schematic comparing the vocal qualities of certain baboon calls (orange ellipses) with selected vowel sounds of American English, where the phonetic symbols / i æ ɑ ɔ u / represent the vowels in beat, bat, bot, bought, boot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Louis-Jean Boë, GIPSA-lab (CNRS & University Grenoble-Alpes)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our latest review <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaaw3916">lays out the whole case</a>, and we believe it finally frees researchers in speech, linguistics, primatology and human evolution from the laryngeal descent theory, which was a great advance in its time, but turned out to be in error and has outlived its usefulness.</p>
<h2>Speech and language in animals?</h2>
<p>Human language requires a vocabulary that can be concrete (“my left thumbnail”), abstract (“love,” “justice”), elsewhere or elsewhen (“Lincoln’s beard”), even imaginary (“Gandalf’s beard”), all of which can be slipped as needed into sentences with internal hierarchical grammar. For instance “the black dog” and “the calico cat” keep the same order whether “X chased Y” or “Y was chased by X,” where the meaning stays the same but the sentence organization is reversed.</p>
<p>Only humans have full language, and arguments are lively about whether any primates or other animals, or our now extinct ancestors, had any of language’s key elements. One popular scenario says that the ability to do grammatical hierarchies arose with the speciation event leading to modern humans, about 200,000 years ago.</p>
<p>Speech, on the other hand, is about the sounds that are used to get language through the air from one person to the next. That requires sounds that contrast enough to keep words distinct. Spoken languages all use contrasts in both vowels and consonants, organized into syllables with vowels at the core.</p>
<p>Apes and monkeys can “talk” in the sense that they can produce contrasting vowel qualities. In that restricted but concrete sense, the dawn of speech was not 200,000 years ago, but some 27 million years ago, before the time of our last common ancestor with Old World monkeys like baboons and macaques. That’s over 100 times earlier than the emergence of our modern human form.</p>
<p>Researchers have a lot of work to do to figure out how speech evolved since then, and how language finally linked in.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors have also published a <a href="https://theconversation.com/la-parole-ne-serait-pas-apparue-avec-homo-sapiens-et-ce-sont-les-singes-qui-nous-le-disent-128708">version of this article in French</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Researchers say it’s time to finally discard a decades-old theory about the origins of human language – and revise the date when human ancestors likely were able to make certain speech noises.Thomas R. Sawallis, Visiting Scholar in New College, University of AlabamaLouis-Jean Boë, Chercheur en Sciences de la parole au GIPSA-lab (CNRS), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959902018-05-08T14:17:48Z2018-05-08T14:17:48ZStudying chimpanzee calls for clues about the origins of human language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218089/original/file-20180508-34006-g309sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C952%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nisarg Desai observes wild chimps known as Sandi, Ferdinand and Siri in Tanzania.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Freud, Wilkie and the other chimpanzees peacefully fed and rested in the sun-dappled Tanzanian forest. Mzee Hilali stood next to me, writing notes on the chimpanzees’ behavior, as he had been doing for over 30 years as a field assistant for <a href="http://www.janegoodall.org/">Jane Goodall’s long-term study at Gombe National Park</a>.</p>
<p>Suddenly, a strange, high-pitched call sounded from where some other chimpanzees were feeding, about a hundred meters from us. Hilali turned to me, and with a little laugh, said, “Nyoka.” This was the Swahili word for “snake.” </p>
<p>Freud climbed down from his tree and walked quickly toward where the call had sounded, with Hilali following close behind. As I slowly made my way through the undergrowth to catch up with them, Hilali called to me: “Chatu!” “Python!”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217732/original/file-20180504-166877-17honyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A glint of snake scales in the vine tangle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I caught up with Hilali, he was pointing to a tangled mass of leaves and vines on the forest floor. I looked closely – most of the snake lay hidden from view, but the one visible stretch of black and tan scaly hide was too big to be anything but a python. </p>
<p>From years of experience, Mzee Hilali knew instantly that this particular chimp call meant they’d found a snake. Does this mean that chimpanzees have a “word” for snake? Do chimpanzees have a language of their own? <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cvK1qxAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">I’ve been working</a> with a team of students and Tanzanian field assistants to record and analyze chimpanzee vocalizations in an effort to answer questions like this. Ultimately we hope to learn more about how human language first evolved.</p>
<h2>Clues to the origins of language</h2>
<p>Chimpanzees are among human beings’ <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics">closest living relatives</a>, and they share with us many unusual traits. Like humans, chimps <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34783">make and use tools</a>; join together in groups to <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/chimpanzees-monkeys-brains-animals-predators/">hunt animals like monkeys</a>; <a href="https://kibalechimpanzees.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/why-do-chimpanzees-fight-with-their-neighbors/">defend group territories</a>; and sometimes <a href="http://blog.michael-lawrence-wilson.com/2014/09/19/chimpanzee-violence/">gang up on and kill their enemies</a>. </p>
<p>One trait that seems to set humans apart from every other species, however, is a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121016-is-language-unique-to-humans">fully developed language</a>. <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/behavioral-biology/animal-behavior/a/animal-communication">Other animals communicate</a>, but only humans appear able to talk about an unlimited variety of topics. Language enables us to make plans, negotiate with and teach one another.</p>
<p>How and why language evolved remains a mystery. Much of the evidence of human evolution comes from fossils, but fossil bones don’t tell us much about soft tissues or the sounds early human ancestors made. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3378/027.083.0202">Studying the communication patterns of our living relatives</a> can help solve the mystery. </p>
<p>If some features of chimpanzee communication resemble language, we can study chimpanzees further to find clues for why those features evolved. If chimpanzee communication doesn’t share much in common with human language, then the key steps in language evolution must have occurred after our lineages separated (around <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1600374113">7.9 million years ago</a>) for reasons unique to our human lineage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217982/original/file-20180507-46341-ghx3q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Wilson with microphone during his dissertation research in Kibale National Park, Uganda, waiting for the chimp known as Light Brown to vocalize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Becky Sun</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recording in the forest</h2>
<p>To investigate chimp communication, my colleagues and I follow chimpanzees through the forest as they go about their lives. We carry a hand-held “shotgun” microphone and a digital recorder, waiting for them to call.</p>
<p>Usually we pick a particular chimp to follow each day, trying to get equal numbers of calls per individual. In addition to recording new calls, we’ve been working to build an archive of recordings from other researchers, going back to the 1970s. The archive currently contains over 71 hours of recordings.</p>
<p>Snake alarm calls are intriguing, but because chimps don’t encounter large snakes very often, it is hard to do a systematic study of them. (<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sbOSgw0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Cathy Crockford</a> and colleagues have done some interesting experiments, though, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0827-z">playing back recordings of these calls</a> to see how chimpanzees respond and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.053">presenting them with model snakes</a>). One thing chimpanzees do every single day, though, is eat. Chimpanzees spend most of their time looking for food and eating it. And when they find food, they often give a particular kind of call: the rough-grunt.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="2" data-image="" data-title="A chimpanzee rough-grunt." data-size="24334" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1163/ms220-food-grunt.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
A chimpanzee rough-grunt.
</div></p>
<p>Biologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pezyHCAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Lisa O'Bryan</a> <a href="https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/07/08/uncovering-the-secrets-of-chimpanzee-communication/">studied rough-grunt calls</a> for her dissertation research with me. They vary from low, noisy grunts to higher-pitched calls. Some researchers have proposed an intriguing possibility: Maybe chimpanzees make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.08.068">distinct kinds of rough-grunt calls in response to particular foods</a>, rather like words that name certain food items.</p>
<p>But Lisa has found that when eating any one kind of food, chimpanzees can produce a range of different rough-grunts. Rough-grunts thus tell other chimps that the caller is eating, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5035852">they don’t say what’s for dinner</a>.</p>
<p>Just as a particular alarm call informs others that a snake has been found, the thin, wavering tones of a copulation scream announce that a mating has just taken place. </p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="1" data-image="" data-title="A chimpanzee copulation scream." data-size="14930" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1162/nl201-cop-scream.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
A chimpanzee copulation scream.
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>14.6 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1162/nl201-cop-scream.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Why female chimpanzees sometimes give such a scream just as they finish mating remains unknown. Because the data collected by Mzee Hilali and other field assistants since the 1970s <a href="https://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/research/pusey-lab/jane-goodall-institute-research-center">have been entered into a computer database</a>, we can readily examine thousands of different mating events.</p>
<p>My student <a href="https://cbs.umn.edu/academics/departments/eeb/graduate/graduate-student-directory#Massaro">Tony Massaro</a> has been analyzing these data to try to tease out what factors make females more likely to produce these calls. Such calls aren’t particularly word-like, but they do play an important role in communication. Like many wordless sounds that people make – think laughter, screams and crying – listeners hearing the sounds can infer quite a bit about the caller’s situation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF0qIy4ZnSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jane Goodall demonstrates how chimpanzees pant-hoot.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Jane Goodall gives public talks, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0qIy4ZnSU">she often begins by giving a pant-hoot</a>: a loud call that begins with an introduction, followed by a build-up, a climax and a let-down. Pant-hoots are loud and enable chimpanzees to communicate over long distances through the forest.</p>
<p>Previous studies have found differences in the pant-hoots calls from different regions. For example, the pant-hoots from Gombe sound a bit different from those made by chimpanzees in Mahale, 160 km away. When I played recordings of a single Mahale pant-hoot call to chimpanzees in Kibale Forest, Uganda, the Kibale chimpanzees <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1706">acted as if they had just heard an intruder</a>. If they were in a group with three or more males, they gave a loud vocal response and rapidly moved towards the speaker.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bd1bO-nK6NQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Response to simulated intruder with many males present.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If they were in a group with only one or two males present, though, they stayed quiet, and if they approached, did so slowly and cautiously.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4bY7GjmlGRQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Response to simulated intruder with only two males present.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For chimpanzees, correctly telling friend from foe is a matter of life or death, so it would make sense for chimpanzees in neighboring groups to have distinctive pant-hoot calls.</p>
<p>Cathy Crockford and colleagues found that pant-hoots from different communities within Taï Forest, Côte d'Ivoire, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2004.00968.x">also sound distinct</a>. If such group-level differences result from vocal learning, they would be rather like dialects in human languages.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217980/original/file-20180507-46347-12kfxla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nisarg going over how to use the recording equipment with Hashimu and Nasibu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Wilson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My student <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/desai054">Nisarg Desai</a> has been testing whether this is also the case at Gombe. We’ve been working with a team of Tanzanian field assistants, Hashimu Issa Salala and Nasibu Zuberi Madumbi, to record calls from the Mitumba and Kasekela chimpanzees, and are starting to test for differences between groups.</p>
<p>We are in the early stages of this analysis.</p>
<h2>From calls to language isn’t a clear path</h2>
<p>Chimpanzees might be capable of some degree of vocal learning, but I’m struck by how subtle the differences in pant-hoot calls are from place to place. Chimpanzees make lots of different calls – pant-hoots, pant-barks, waa-barks, pant-grunts, rough-grunts, and so on – but across Africa, all chimpanzees produce a pretty similar set of calls in similar circumstances. In this respect, chimpanzee calls resemble human sounds like laughter and crying more than they resemble human words, which can vary drastically from place to place.</p>
<p>Chimpanzees communicate effectively with their various sounds, but in ways quite similar to those of other nonhuman primates. This suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees also had a fairly typical repertoire of vocal communication for a nonhuman primate. The really big changes in human language – such as a lifelong ability to learn to make entirely new sounds and a rich symbolic meaning of such sounds – likely evolved later, for reasons that we still don’t understand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Wilson's research on chimpanzee vocal communication has been funded by the National Science Foundation and a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and a Talle Faculty Research Award from the University of Minnesota.</span></em></p>Do chimpanzee talk to each other? Scientists follow and record chimpanzees in the wild to find out – and to fill in details about how human language might have evolved.Michael Wilson, Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/918912018-03-02T11:42:41Z2018-03-02T11:42:41ZHow people talk now holds clues about human migration centuries ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208303/original/file-20180228-36680-1gzt1zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=349%2C349%2C4132%2C2645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What can a modern-day Creole language tell us about its first speakers in the 1600s?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paramaribo,_Suriname_(11987836025).jpg">M M</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Often, you can tell where someone grew up by the way they speak.</p>
<p>For example, if someone in the United States doesn’t pronounce the final “r” at the end of “car,” you might think they are from the Boston area, based on sometimes exaggerated stereotypes about American accents and dialects, such as “Pahk the cahr in Hahvahd Yahd.”</p>
<p>Linguists go deeper than the stereotypes, though. They’ve used <a href="http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/cambridge_survey/">large-scale surveys</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html">map out many features of dialects</a>. The more you know about how a person pronounces certain words, the more likely you’ll be able to pinpoint where they are from. For instance, linguists know that dropping the “r” sounds at the end of words is actually common in many English dialects; they can map in space and time how r-dropping is widespread in the London area and has become increasingly common in England over the years. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0055">In a recent study</a>, we applied this concept to a different question: the formation of Creole languages. <a href="https://mona-uwi.academia.edu/ASherriah">As a linguist</a> and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vwQdgAYAAAAJ&hl=en">biologist who studies cultural evolution</a>, we wanted to see how much information we could glean from a snapshot of how a language exists at one moment in time. Working with linguist <a href="https://www.mona.uwi.edu/dllp/jlu/staff/devonish.htm">Hubert Devonish</a> and psychologist <a href="https://profiles.stanford.edu/ewart-thomas">Ewart Thomas</a>, could we figure out the language “ingredients” that went into a Creole language, and where these “ingredients” originally came from?</p>
<h2>Mixing languages to make a Creole</h2>
<p>When a <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/cll.25/main">Creole language forms</a>, it’s generally because <a href="http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Sociolinguistics/Theoriesofgenesis">two or more populations come together</a> without a common language to speak. Across history, this was often in the context of colonialism, indentured servitude and slavery. For example, in the U.S., <a href="http://www.afropedea.org/louisiana-creoles-people">Louisiana Creole</a> was formed by speakers of French and several African languages in the French slave colony of Louisiana. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/000000008792525228">As people mix</a>, a new language forms, and often the origins of individual words can be traced back to one of the source languages.</p>
<p>Our idea was that, if specific dialects were common among the migrants, the way they pronounce words might influence the pronunciations in the new Creole language. In other words, if English-derived words in a Creole exhibit r-dropping, we might hypothesize that the English speakers present when the Creole formed also dropped their r’s.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-244" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/244/d0929212fe8463b2bd63c88f0474e341fd78aee8/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Following this logic, we examined the pronunciation of Sranan, an English-based Creole still spoken in Suriname. We wanted to see if we could use language clues to identify where in England the original settlers came from. Sranan developed around the mid-17th century, due to contact between speakers of English dialects from England, migrants from elsewhere in Europe (such as Portugal and the Netherlands) and enslaved Africans who spoke a variety of West African languages.</p>
<p>As is the case with most English-based Creoles, the majority of the lexicon is English. Unlike most English Creoles, though, Sranan represents a linguistic fossil of the early colonial English that went into its development. In 1667, soon after Sranan was formed, the English ceded Suriname to the Dutch, and most English speakers moved elsewhere. So the indentured servants and other migrants from England had a brief but strong influence on Sranan.</p>
<h2>Using historical records to check our work</h2>
<p>We asked whether we could use features of Sranan to hypothesize where the English settlers originated and then corroborate these hypotheses via historical records.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208295/original/file-20180228-36700-182it7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The similarity of each English dialect to Sranan. The most similar dialect, Blagdon, is indicated by a red arrow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0055">source</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, we compared a set of linguistic features of modern-day Sranan with those of English as spoken in 313 localities across England. We focused on things like the production of “r” sounds after vowels and “h” sounds at the start of words. Since some aspects of English dialects have changed over the last few centuries, we also consulted historical accounts of both English and Sranan.</p>
<p>It turned out that 80 percent of the English features in Sranan could be traced back to regional dialectal features from two distinct locations within England: a cluster of locations near the port of Bristol and a cluster near Essex, in eastern England. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208294/original/file-20180228-36696-1505m3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Circles represent the origin locations listed in ship records. The area of the circle is proportional to the number of individuals from that location. Bristol is marked by a yellow star, London by a blue star.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0055">source</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, we examined archival records such as the <a href="http://www.virtualjamestown.org/indentures/search_indentures.html">Bristol Register of Servants to Foreign Plantations</a> to see if the language clues we’d identified were backed up by historical evidence of migration. Indeed, these boat records indicate that indentured servants departing for English colonies were predominantly from the regions identified by our language analysis.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0055">Our research was proof of concept</a> that we could use modern information to learn more about the linguistic features that went into the formation of a Creole language. We can gain confidence in our conclusions because the historical record backed them up. Language can be a solid clue about the origins and history of human migrations. </p>
<p>We hope to use a similar approach to examine the African languages that have influenced Creole languages, since much less is known about the origins of enslaved people than the European indentured servants. Analyses like these might help us retrace aspects of forced migrations via the slave trade and paint a more complete linguistic picture of Creole formations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Creanza has received funding from the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary, and Human Genomics. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>André Ché Sherriah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research suggests that hints left in Creole languages can identify where the original speakers came from – even hundreds of years after they migrated and mixed together.Nicole Creanza, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt UniversityAndré Ché Sherriah, Postdoctoral Associate in Linguistics, University of the West Indies, Mona CampusLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/826832017-09-26T23:23:04Z2017-09-26T23:23:04ZKia ora: how Māori borrowings shape New Zealand English<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186494/original/file-20170919-12912-1o3fzie.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Borrowings from the indigenous Māori language are so common that visitors to New Zealand are greeted in Māori as soon as they arrive.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sinead Leahy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand English is one of the youngest dialects of English. It exhibits a number of unique features and the use of words from the indigenous Māori language is probably the most salient and easily recognisable one. </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.ahead-of-print/cllt-2017-0010/cllt-2017-0010.xml">latest research</a>, we found that the process by which Māori words are most frequently borrowed resembles the Darwinian concept of evolutionary fitness. </p>
<h2>Of words and genes</h2>
<p>Borrowings from Māori are so common that visitors to New Zealand only have to exit the plane to be greeted by haere mai.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186498/original/file-20170919-12912-16d61et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sinead Leahy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>New Zealand English is spoken nearly 20,000 kilometres away from the language which gave rise to it. Distinct from its closely related cousin, Australian English, but often mistaken for it, our variety of English is unique to New Zealand/Aotearoa. </p>
<p>New Zealand English is, of course, not alone in borrowing words from other languages. British English is no stranger to this, exhibiting words from as far as China and Japan to the east (ginseng, chow mein, kimono), and Native American languages to the west (tepee, toboggan). It is not exceptional in its array of foreign words, being both a donor and a receiver. This is the norm for many languages. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/embracing-indigenous-languages-the-kiwis-just-do-it-better-42045">Embracing Indigenous languages: the Kiwis just do it better</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The flow of words around the world can be compared to the flow of genes across species. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/85/16/6002.long">a ground-breaking paper in 1988</a> that Darwin’s idea that linguistic and genetic evolution paths go hand-in-hand was spot on. </p>
<p>Like genes, words rely on the existence of a host (a population of speakers in this case) and they evolve and adapt to the needs of their host. The host is crucial. When the last speaker of a language dies, the language itself dies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186508/original/file-20170919-12924-19h5hbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bilingual signs, as seen here at the Wellington zoo, are common throughout New Zealand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Veronika Meduna</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like genes, words can be understood to compete for the attention of their speakers, and this process can be modelled with mathematical and computational tools developed by geneticists. That is not to say that languages and genes are transferred by the same mechanism, but there are certainly parallels in their transfer. One crucial similarity is that humans take both their genes and their languages with them wherever they go.</p>
<p>What is more, like genes, language tells a story of who we are. It cannot be reduced to a mere process of information transfer - implanting an idea from one brain into another, without surgery. In reality, as any newspaper section of “letters to the editor” reveals, people invest much personal anguish in assessing current linguistic usage and they are critical of incoming changes. </p>
<p>The worry is that such changes may bring about the demise of the entire language. The use of foreign words can be seen as one such catalyst.</p>
<h2>Māori borrowings in New Zealand English</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186692/original/file-20170920-16985-rx3541.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kura is Māori for school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Te Puni Kōkiri</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Borrowings have been met with general disapproval by some, partly because the process implies that foreign words are merely borrowed from another language to fill a gap in the original language. This gap might be a speaker’s own lack of proficiency of the language, which prompts the adoption of a foreign word that spreads to the rest of the population of speakers, or it could be a gap in the lexical resources available (language Y does not have a word for X). </p>
<p>Borrowed words act as gap fillers and as such, they point out what might be (wrongly) perceived as deficiencies. </p>
<p>Could this be why Māori borrowings show up in New Zealand English? In a <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.ahead-of-print/cllt-2017-0010/cllt-2017-0010.xml">recent paper</a>, we investigate the relative success of various Māori borrowings, taking into account how often a loanword is used as a ratio of its potential use, for example, the frequency of “aroha” (love) as a ratio of the total frequency of “aroha” and its English counterpart “love”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.ahead-of-print/cllt-2017-0010/cllt-2017-0010.xml">Our results show</a> that when comparing the relative success of Māori borrowings, the Darwinian concept of evolutionary fitness comes into play. A desire for economy of expression can help to explain why a word like “reo” (language) is relatively more frequent than “hōhonu” (deep): “reo” is shorter than “language”, whereas “hōhonu” is longer than “deep”. The same goes for borrowings whose closest counterparts in English can only be expressed by phrases, and not single words.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186505/original/file-20170919-12910-1shpx4u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/about-us/what-is-the-maori-language-commission/">Māori Language Commission</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The social factors of borrowing</h2>
<p>There is more to the story though. While speakers agree in their desire for economy of expression, we find variation in borrowing behaviours across speakers. Unsurprisingly, Māori speakers of English are the chief users of borrowings, with Māori women leading the way. Female-led <a href="http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631179151.html">language change</a> is typical when the change is seen as the new “standard” of that language variety.</p>
<p>What prompts New Zealanders of European origins to incorporate Māori word in English seems to have to do with whom they are addressing. If addressing Māori or a group containing one, they are much more likely to use borrowings, presumably in order to show affinity with their audience. Interestingly, none of the New Zealand European speakers in our data reported being able to speak Māori. </p>
<p>Furthermore, they seem to avoid borrowings with multiple meanings (possibly due to being unsure about the exact meaning of such words). </p>
<h2>Consequences for language change</h2>
<p>If speakers who do not speak Māori will nevertheless use Māori words in their day-to-day English, could this have larger consequences for the Māori language itself? </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.ahead-of-print/cllt-2017-0010/cllt-2017-0010.xml">Reviving Indigenous languages – not as easy as it seems</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Following a long period of decline in Māori proficiency rates to near extinction, the <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0176/latest/whole.html">Māori Language Act</a> was passed in 1987, awarding <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/maori-becomes-an-official-language">Māori official status</a>. </p>
<p>This year marks 30 years since that historic day and since the establishment of the <a href="http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/our-work/">Māori Language Commission</a>, whose aim is to support the language. Today, Māori is spoken by just under 4% of all New Zealanders, and by 21% of Māori New Zealanders (according to the latest <a href="http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-social-indicators/Home/Culture%20and%20identity/maori-lang-speakers.aspx">2013 census</a>). </p>
<p>The Māori Language Commission actively encourages the use of Māori words by everyone in New Zealand, whether they speak the language or not, and offers <a href="http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/resources/">freely downloadable posters</a> to this end. Thus the official stance is certainly that borrowings could well pave the way to higher proficiency rates by raising awareness and increasing language prestige. It will be interesting to see whether the future agrees with these assumptions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreea S. Calude receives funding from the Royal Society Marsden Grant Fund. </span></em></p>One of the distinguishing features of New Zealand English is how much it borrows from the indigenous Māori, with consequences for both languages.Andreea S. Calude, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/754342017-07-16T18:09:27Z2017-07-16T18:09:27ZWhy do human beings speak so many languages?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178173/original/file-20170713-11780-17ip7zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People currently speak 7,000 languages around the globe.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Gavin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The thatched roof held back the sun’s rays, but it could not keep the tropical heat at bay. As everyone at the research workshop headed outside for a break, small groups splintered off to gather in the shade of coconut trees and enjoy a breeze. I wandered from group to group, joining in the discussions. Each time, I noticed that the language of the conversation would change from an indigenous language to something they knew I could understand, Bislama or English. I was amazed by the ease with which the meeting’s participants switched between languages, but I was even more astonished by the number of different indigenous languages.</p>
<p>Thirty people had gathered for the workshop on this island in the South Pacific, and all except for me came from the island, called Makelua, in the nation of Vanuatu. They lived in 16 different communities and spoke 16 distinct languages. </p>
<p>In many cases, you could stand at the edge of one village and see the outskirts of the next community. Yet the residents of each village spoke completely different languages. According to recent work by my colleagues at the <a href="http://www.shh.mpg.de/180082/dlce-research-projects">Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History</a>, this island, just 100 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, is home to speakers of <a href="http://www.soundcomparisons.com/#/en/Malakula/map/one/Lgs_All">perhaps 40 different indigenous languages</a>. Why so many? </p>
<p>We could ask this same question of the entire globe. People don’t speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/">7,000 distinct languages</a>. </p>
<p>And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107623">far more languages</a> are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu’s 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.</p>
<p>Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178175/original/file-20170713-9804-1u8y70s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why do some places have many languages, and others only a few?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dgernesiais_welcome_sign_St_Peter_Port_Guernsey.jpg">Man vyi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Some ideas, but little evidence</h2>
<p>Most people can easily brainstorm possible answers to these intriguing questions. They hypothesize that language diversity must be about history, cultural differences, mountains or oceans dividing populations, or old squabbles writ large – “we hated them, so we don’t talk to them.”</p>
<p>The questions also seem like they should be fundamental to many academic disciplines – linguistics, anthropology, human geography. But, starting in 2010, when <a href="https://www.nescent.org/science/awards_summary.php-id=255.html">our diverse team</a> of researchers from six different disciplines and eight different countries began to review what was known, we were shocked that only a dozen previous studies had been done, including one we ourselves completed on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00744.x">language diversity in the Pacific</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.6">These prior efforts</a> all examined the degree to which different environmental, social and geographic variables correlated with the number of languages found in a given location. The results varied a lot from one study to another, and no clear patterns emerged. The studies also ran up against many methodological challenges, the biggest of which centered on the old statistical adage – correlation does not equal causation.</p>
<p>We wanted to know the exact steps that led to so many languages forming in certain places and so few in others. But previous work provided few robust theories on the specific processes involved, and the methods used did not get us any closer to understanding the causes of language diversity patterns.</p>
<p>For example, previous studies pointed out that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107623">at lower latitudes</a> languages are often spoken across smaller areas than at higher latitudes. You can fit more languages into a given area the closer you get to the equator. But this result does not tell us much about the processes that create language diversity. Just because a group of people crosses an imaginary latitudinal line on the map doesn’t mean they’ll automatically divide into two different populations speaking two different languages. Latitude might be correlated with language diversity, but it certainly did not create it. </p>
<h2>Can a simple model predict reality?</h2>
<p>A better way to identify the causes of particular patterns is to simulate the processes we think might be creating them. The closer the model’s products are to the reality we know exists, the greater the chances are that we understand the actual processes at work. </p>
<p>Two members of our group, ecologists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EHbuZpYAAAAJ">Thiago Rangel</a> and <a href="http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/Colwell/">Robert Colwell</a>, had developed this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0293">simulation modeling technique</a> for their studies of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/521315">species diversity patterns</a>. But no one had ever used this approach to study the diversity of human populations.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12563">We decided to explore its potential</a> by first building a simple model to test the degree to which a few basic processes might explain language diversity patterns in just one part of the globe, the continent of Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177774/original/file-20170711-14452-167eqee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of Australia’s 406 languages before contact with Europeans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12563">Claire Bowern, Yale University, with support from the National Science Foundation BCS-1423711</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our colleague <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/claire-bowern-1098">Claire Bowern</a>, a linguist at Yale University, created a map that shows the diversity of aboriginal languages – a total of 406 – found in Australia prior to contact with Europeans. There were far more languages in the north and along the coasts, with relatively few in the desert interior. We wanted to see how closely a model, based on a simple set of processes, could match this geographic pattern of language diversity. </p>
<p>Our simulation model made only three basic assumptions. First, populations will move to fill available spaces where no one else lives.</p>
<p>Second, rainfall will limit the number of people that can live in a place; Our model assumed that people would live in higher densities in areas where it rained more. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/geb.12563/asset/supinfo/geb12563-sup-0002-suppinfo2.pdf?v=1&s=b92a15ea48c3a0d9f85c9bd2e3731a1162917e89">Annual precipitation varies widely in Australia</a>, from over three meters in the northeastern rainforests to one-tenth of a meter in the Outback. </p>
<p>Third, we assumed that human populations have a maximum size. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1089-2699.12.1.7">Ideal group size</a> is a trade-off between benefits of a larger group (wider selection of potential mates) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(90)90009-3">costs</a> (keeping track of unrelated individuals). In our model, when a population grew larger than a maximum threshold – set randomly based on a global distribution of hunter-gatherer population sizes – it divided into two populations, each speaking a distinct language.</p>
<p>We used this model to simulate language diversity maps for Australia. In each iteration, an initial population sprung up randomly somewhere on the map and began to grow and spread in a random direction. An underlying rainfall map determined the population density, and when the population size hit the predetermined maximum, the group divided. In this way, the simulated human populations grew and divided as they spread to fill up the entire Australian continent.</p>
<p>Our simple model didn’t include any impact from contact among groups, changes in subsistence strategies, the effects of the borrowing of cultural ideas or components of language from nearby groups, or many other potential processes. So, we expected it would fail miserably. </p>
<p>Incredibly, the model produced 407 languages, just one off from the actual number.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177760/original/file-20170711-26274-z0c5mn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The simulation model predicts virtually the same number of languages (407) as were observed in reality (406).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12563">Gavin et al DOI: 10.1111/geb.12563</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The simulated language maps also show more languages in the north and along the coasts, and less in the dry regions of central Australia, mirroring the geographic patterns in observed language diversity.</p>
<p>And so for the continent of Australia it appears that a small number of factors – limitations rainfall places on population density and limits on group size – might explain both the number of languages and much of the variation in how many languages are spoken in different locations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178176/original/file-20170713-5760-cvw5nj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A simulation model based on a few simple processes predicts much of the geographic variation in language diversity in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12563">Gavin et al DOI: 10.1111/geb.12563</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Applying the model elsewhere</h2>
<p>But we suspect that the patterns of language diversity in other places may be shaped by different factors and processes. In other locations, such as Vanuatu, rainfall levels do not vary as widely as in Australia, and population densities may be shaped by other environmental conditions.</p>
<p>In other instances, contact among human groups probably reshaped the landscape of language diversity. For example, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1078208">spread of agricultural groups</a> speaking Indo-European or Bantu languages may have changed the structure of populations and the languages spoken across huge areas of Europe and Africa, respectively.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, a wide variety of social and environmental factors and processes have contributed to the patterns in language diversity we see across the globe. In some places topography, climate or the density of key natural resources may be more critical; in others the history of warfare, political organization or the subsistence strategies of different groups may play a bigger role in shaping group boundaries and language diversity patterns. What we have established for now is a template for a method that can be used to uncover the different processes at work in each location.</p>
<p>Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Funding from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and the National Science Foundation to Michael Gavin (BCS-1660465) and Claire Bowern (BCS-1423711) supported the research discussed in this article.</span></em></p>There’s little research into origins of the geographic patterns of language diversity. A new model exploring processes that shaped Australia’s language diversity provides a template for investigators.Michael Gavin, Associate Professor of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/686412016-11-16T13:26:50Z2016-11-16T13:26:50ZRed, yellow, pink and green: How the world’s languages name the rainbow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146234/original/image-20161116-13506-10ayrig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=307%2C71%2C3877%2C2628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How many colors in your language's rainbow?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-130215719.html">Eye image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is striking that English color words come from many sources. Some of the more exotic ones, like “vermilion” and “chartreuse,” were borrowed from French, and are named after the color of a particular item (a type of mercury and a liquor, respectively). But even our words “black” and “white” didn’t originate as color terms. “Black” comes from a word meaning “burnt,” and “white” comes from a word meaning “shining.” </p>
<p>Color words vary a lot across the world. Most languages have between two and 11 basic color words. English, for example, has the full set of 11 basic colors: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, pink, gray, brown, orange and purple. In a 1999 survey by linguists <a href="http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/%7Ekay/">Paul Kay</a> and <a href="http://terralingua.org/">Luisa Maffi</a>, languages were <a href="http://wals.info/feature/133A#2/22.3/153.7">roughly equally distributed</a> between the basic color categories that they tracked.</p>
<p>In languages with fewer terms than this – such as the Alaskan language Yup'ik with its five terms – the range of a word expands. For example, for languages without a separate word for “orange,” hues that we’d call “orange” in English might be named by the same color that English speakers would call “red” or “yellow.” We can think of these terms as a system that together cover the visible spectrum, but where individual terms are centered on various parts of that spectrum.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146097/original/image-20161115-31138-1hotkg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration of a color system with 20 hues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MunsellColorWheel.svg">Thenoizz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Does that mean that speakers of languages with fewer words for colors see less color? No, just as English speakers can see the difference between the “blue” of the sky and the “blue” of an M&M. Moreover, if language words limited our perception of color, words wouldn’t be able to change; speakers would not be able to add new distinctions. </p>
<p>My colleague <a href="http://hannahhaynie.com/">Hannah Haynie</a> and <a href="http://campuspress.yale.edu/clairebowern">I</a> were interested in how color terms might change over time, and in particular, in how color terms might change as a system. That is, do the words change independently, or does change in one word trigger a change in others? <a href="http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1613666113">In our research, recently published in the journal PNAS</a>, we used a computer modeling technique more common in biology than linguistics to investigate typical patterns and rates of color term change. Contrary to previous assumptions, what we found suggests that color words aren’t unique in how they evolve in language.</p>
<h2>Questioning common conceptions on colors</h2>
<p>Previous work (such as by anthropological linguists <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/op.php?isbn=9780520076358">Brent Berlin and Paul Kay</a>) has suggested that the order in which new color terms are added to a language is largely fixed. Speakers begin with two terms – one covering “black” and dark hues, the other covering “white” and light hues. There are plenty of languages with only two color terms, but in all cases, one of the color terms is centered on “black” and the other on “white.”</p>
<p>When a language has three terms, the third is one is almost always centered on hues that English speakers would call “red.” There are no languages with three color terms where the named colors are centered on black, white and light green, for example. If a language has four color terms, they will be black, white, red and either yellow or green. In the next stage, both yellow and green are present, while the next color terms to be added are blue and brown (in that order). Cognitive scientists and linguists such as <a href="http://lclab.berkeley.edu/papers/tics2-published.pdf">Terry Regier</a> have argued that these particular parts of the color spectrum are most noticeable for people.</p>
<p>Berlin and Kay also hypothesized that language speakers don’t lose color terms. For example, once a language has a distinction between “red-like” hues (such as blood) and “yellow-like” ones (such as bananas), they wouldn’t collapse the distinction and go back to calling them all by the same color name again.</p>
<p>This would make color words quite different from other areas of language change, where words come and go. For example, words can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01105-6">change their meaning</a> when they are used metaphorically, but over time the metaphoric meaning becomes basic. They can broaden or narrow their meanings; for example, English “starve” used to mean “die” (generally), not “die of hunger,” as it primarily means now. “Starve” has also acquired metaphorical meanings.</p>
<p>That there’s something unique about the stability of color concepts is an assumption we wanted to investigate. We were also interested in patterns of color naming and where color terms come from. And we wanted to look at the rates of change – that is, if color terms are added, do speakers tend to add lots of them? Or are the additions more independent, with color terms added one at a time?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146236/original/image-20161116-13506-15zf4h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Everyone sees them all, but languages divide them into different color terms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=300363659&src=lb-29877982">Colors image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Modeling how a language tree grew</h2>
<p>We tested these ideas using color words in Australian Aboriginal languages. We worked with Australian languages (rather than European or other languages) for several reasons. Color demarcations vary in Indo-European, but the number of colors in each language is pretty similar; the ranges differ but the number of colors don’t vary very much. Russian has two terms that cover the hues that English speakers call “blue,” but Indo-European languages have many terms.</p>
<p>In contrast, Australian languages are a lot more variable, ranging from systems like Darkinyung’s, with just two terms (<em>mining</em> for “black” and <em>barag</em> for “white”), to languages like Kaytetye, where there are at least eight colors, or Bidyara with six. That variation gave us more points of data. Also, there are simply a lot of languages in Australia: Of the more than 400 spoken at the time of European settlement, we had color data for 189 languages of the Pama-Nyungan family, from the <a href="http://pamanyungan.net/chirila">Chirila</a> <a href="https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/24685/bowern.pdf">database</a> of Australian languages.</p>
<p>In order to answer these questions, we used techniques originally developed in biology. Phylogenetic methods use computers to study the remote past. In brief, we use probability theory, combined with a family tree of languages, to make a model of what the history of the color words might have been.</p>
<p>First, we construct a tree that shows how languages are related to one another. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama_nyungan">contemporary Pama-Nyungan languages</a> are all descended from a single ancestor language. Over 6,000 years, Proto-Pama-Nyungan split into different dialects, and those dialects turned into different languages: about 300 of them at the time of the European settlement of Australia. Linguists usually show those splits on a family tree diagram. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145959/original/image-20161115-30749-1mlxf6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Family tree of Australian languages with their color terms and reconstructions of color systems for major subgroups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Haynie and Bowern (2016): Figure 3</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, we build a model for that tree of how different features (in this case, color terms) are gained or lost, and how quickly those features might change. This is a complicated problem; we estimate likely reconstructions, evaluate that model for how well it fits our hypotheses, tweak the model parameters a bit to produce a different set of results, score that model, and so on. We repeat this many times (millions of times, usually) and then take a random sample of our estimates. This method is due originally to evolutionary biologists <a href="http://www.evolution.reading.ac.uk/">Mark Pagel and Andrew Meade</a>.</p>
<p>Estimates that are very consistent (like reconstructing terms for “black,” “white” and “red”) are highly likely to be good reconstructions. Other forms were consistently reconstructed as absent (for instance, “blue” from many parts of the tree). A third set of forms were more variable, such as “yellow” and “green” in some parts of the tree; in that case, we have some evidence they were present, but it’s unclear. </p>
<p>Our results supported some of the previous findings, but questioned others. In general, our findings backed up Berlin and Kay’s ideas about the sequential adding of terms, in the order they proposed. For the most part, our color data showed that Australian languages also show the patterns of color term naming that have been proposed elsewhere in the world; if there are three named colors, they will be black, white and red (not, for example, black, white and purple). But we show that it is most likely that Australian languages have lost color terms, as well as gained them. This contradicts 40 years of assumptions of how color terms change – and makes color words look a lot more like other words. </p>
<p>We also looked at where the color words themselves came from. Some were old in the family, and seemed to go back as color terms. Others relate to the environment (like <em>tyimpa</em> for “black” in Yandruwandha, which is related to a word which means “ashes” in other languages) or to other color words (compare Yolŋu <em>miku</em> for “red,” which also sometimes means simply “colored”). So Australian languages show similar sources of color terms to languages elsewhere in the world: color words change when people draw analogies with items in their environment.</p>
<p>Our research shows the potential for using language change to study areas of science that have previously been more closely examined by fields such as psychology. Psychologists and psycholinguists have described how constraints from our vision systems lead to particular areas of the color spectrum being named. We show that these constraints apply to color loss as well as gain. Just as it’s a lot easier to see a chameleon when it moves, language change makes it possible to see how words are working.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Bowern receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council. She is Vice-President of the Endangered Language Fund. </span></em></p>New research investigates how people sequentially add new color terms to languages over time – and the results hold surprises about assumptions linguists have made for 40 years.Claire Bowern, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.