Comments on: Punctuated Equilibrium and the evolution of languages. http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/ the Human Evolution News Relay Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:14:32 +1200 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Simon Greenhill http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-1407 Simon Greenhill Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:04:19 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-1407 Hi Jesper, thanks for the comment. I think it'll be quite interesting to look at proximity between languages and other potential factors (for example, some of the borrowing literature suggests that borrowing is reduced if the societies don't get along, or borrowing is increased if the language is more similar). Certainly - our results have only explained around 25% of the variation there, and there's a lot of other things going on! & yes, that should be "wasser"! I can see that my 5 years of high-school German have gone to waste! --Simon Hi Jesper, thanks for the comment.

I think it’ll be quite interesting to look at proximity between languages and other potential factors (for example, some of the borrowing literature suggests that borrowing is reduced if the societies don’t get along, or borrowing is increased if the language is more similar). Certainly – our results have only explained around 25% of the variation there, and there’s a lot of other things going on!

& yes, that should be “wasser”! I can see that my 5 years of high-school German have gone to waste!

–Simon

]]> By: Jesper Rugård http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-1400 Jesper Rugård Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:12:43 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-1400 Very interesting. Is there any relevance in also looking a cutural proximity, i.e. do isolated languages change in another way than languages close to other different ones. Loan words, new grammar, pidgin structures etc. Or is that irrelevant when looking at change at this level? By the way: did you mean 'wasser' instead of 'vasser' for German water? Very interesting.
Is there any relevance in also looking a cutural proximity, i.e. do isolated languages change in another way than languages close to other different ones. Loan words, new grammar, pidgin structures etc. Or is that irrelevant when looking at change at this level?

By the way: did you mean ‘wasser’ instead of ‘vasser’ for German water?

]]> By: “Lexomics” - Breaking the language barrier » HENRY http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-1267 “Lexomics” - Breaking the language barrier » HENRY Thu, 22 May 2008 08:14:45 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-1267 [...] The full story is here, and I’ve written about some of the (our) research here before. [...] [...] The full story is here, and I’ve written about some of the (our) research here before. [...]

]]> By: R. Henry Nigl http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-641 R. Henry Nigl Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:03:15 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-641 This was an enitrely instinctive response to an opportunity (that's another story), additional attention can also be found at the UBU Web site http://www.ubu.com/sound/nigl.html--thought you might be interested. This was an enitrely instinctive response to an opportunity (that’s another story), additional attention can also be found at the UBU Web site http://www.ubu.com/sound/nigl.html–thought you might be interested.

]]> By: Simon Greenhill http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-640 Simon Greenhill Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:16:20 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-640 Hello David, Thanks for pointing out the Thurston reference - I have a vague recollection of skim-reading it a few years back, but I'll have to browse more closely when I get some time. --Simon Hello David,

Thanks for pointing out the Thurston reference – I have a vague recollection of skim-reading it a few years back, but I’ll have to browse more closely when I get some time.

–Simon

]]> By: David Nash http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-635 David Nash Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:39:24 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-635 Claire means to refer to Thurston, William R. 1987. <i>Processes of change in the languages of North-Western New Britain.</i> (Pacific Linguistics B-99), who even uses the term'punctuated equilibrium'. Claire means to refer to
Thurston, William R. 1987. Processes of change in the languages of North-Western New Britain. (Pacific Linguistics B-99), who even uses the term’punctuated equilibrium’.

]]> By: Claire http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/comment-page-1/#comment-631 Claire Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:37:37 +0000 http://henry.simon.net.nz/stories/2008/02/01/punctuated-equilibrium-and-the-evolution-of-languages/#comment-631 Thurgood's dissertation (published by Pacific Linguistics somewhere between 1987 and 1989) is probably closest to the biological notion of punctuated equilibrium in linguistics. There's not a huge amount of reconstruction work in Australia (yet!) but from what I can see we do find subgroups with lots of changes (Arandic, Paman), and other areas which are very conservative. As far as I remember, Dixon doesn't draw any conclusions about the rate of change, just the amount of homoplasy (he doesn't use that term, but that's what the claim boils down to). In my view, that doesn't work in Australia either. Thurgood’s dissertation (published by Pacific Linguistics somewhere between 1987 and 1989) is probably closest to the biological notion of punctuated equilibrium in linguistics.

There’s not a huge amount of reconstruction work in Australia (yet!) but from what I can see we do find subgroups with lots of changes (Arandic, Paman), and other areas which are very conservative. As far as I remember, Dixon doesn’t draw any conclusions about the rate of change, just the amount of homoplasy (he doesn’t use that term, but that’s what the claim boils down to). In my view, that doesn’t work in Australia either.

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