The Link Between Evolution and Language | Richard Dawkins | TED

Overview

This conversation explores the fascinating parallels between biological evolution and linguistic change, delving into topics like overexpression in language and nature, the role of randomness versus selection, and the hybrid origins of languages. Richard Dawkins and John McWhorter offer insights into how both genes and words adapt, drift, and evolve over time.

Notable Quotes

- The human ability to create epic poems and symphonies might be our version of the peacock’s tail — a form of sexual selection. - Richard Dawkins, on the evolutionary purpose of human creativity.

- Languages evolve like creatures — not always for survival, but often just because things drift. - John McWhorter, on the randomness of linguistic change.

- Proto-Indo-European wasn’t pure; it was likely a hybrid, just like English is today. - Richard Dawkins, challenging the idea of linguistic purity.

🧬 Evolutionary Overexpression in Nature and Language

- John McWhorter compares the redundancy in language (e.g., English’s overuse of future tense markers like will) to biological overexpression, asking whether creatures also overdo traits.

- Richard Dawkins likens this to the peacock’s tail, which evolved through sexual selection despite being impractical. He explains how runaway selection amplifies traits, creating exaggerated features like the tail or human creativity.

- Dawkins suggests that human art forms like poetry and music might serve as evolutionary advertisements for mating, akin to the peacock’s tail.

🗣️ Drift and Selection in Language and Biology

- McWhorter highlights how linguistic changes, such as the Great Vowel Shift, often occur randomly rather than for functional reasons, paralleling genetic drift in biology.

- Dawkins explains that genetic drift, unlike natural selection, produces neutral changes — akin to switching fonts without altering meaning.

- Both discuss whether linguistic shifts, like vowel changes, might sometimes be driven by functional clarity, though McWhorter argues randomness dominates.

🌍 Hybrid Origins of Languages and Species

- Dawkins challenges the notion of Proto-Indo-European as a singular, pure language, proposing it was likely a hybrid influenced by neighboring tongues.

- He draws parallels to biological evolution, where species often share genetic material across generations, especially in bacteria, which swap genes freely.

- McWhorter agrees, noting that all languages are hybrids to some extent, shaped by cultural and historical mixing.

🐸 Species Differentiation and Social Identity in Language

- Dawkins describes how closely related frog species exaggerate their differences in overlapping territories, akin to humans emphasizing dialects for social identity.

- McWhorter connects this to linguistic behavior, where groups intentionally distinguish their speech to assert identity, saying, We’re not like them.

- Both explore how these exaggerations accelerate speciation in biology and reinforce social boundaries in language.

📜 The Role of Randomness in Linguistic and Genetic Evolution

- McWhorter argues that linguistic changes often feel arbitrary, citing examples like the erosion of clarity in question words in Siberian languages.

- Dawkins counters that randomness in evolution, while significant, doesn’t produce adaptations — selection does.

- They discuss whether linguistic shifts, like the loss of distinctions between can and can’t in American English, are functional or simply tolerated due to context.