{"items": [{"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=410970841212", "anchor": "fb-410970841212", "service": "fb", "text": "I'm wondering if the increased rate of evolution on islands is just our old friend the adaptive radiation. This quote seems to me suggestive of that.
\"The tendency for faster evolution on islands holds over relatively short time scales\u2014from a few decades up to several thousands of years\u2014but not over larger ones\u2014up to 12 million y.\"
As for adaptive radiations, the classic work on that subject is _Form and Life of the Rhinogrades_ by Harald St\u00fcmpke.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/snouters.html
Google finds some delightful modern articles on the so-called Snouters.", "timestamp": "1279607353"}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=411234026212", "anchor": "fb-411234026212", "service": "fb", "text": "Status? Adding tricky bits makes you look clever? You started saying wh to impress Laurie, and I started doing it to impress you. Or win an argument, or something.", "timestamp": "1279672330"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=411287431212", "anchor": "fb-411287431212", "service": "fb", "text": "My original question, which was about grammar rather than vocabulary ( though i neglected to say that up front) has two parts. First, is there any dis/advantage to a more complex grammar? Perhaps having to parse a complex sentence into subject-verb-object before assigning meaning uses circuits that would otherwise be assigned to something else, like finding your way around. (It could be there's an advantage to a complex grammar if the extra circuits could be used to improve another skill.) This would be hard, but clearly not impossible, to test.
Second, if Creole grammars are in fact the simplest humans can use, *and* if there's a disadvantage to more complex grammars, what selection pressure *favors* them?
Jeff surmised--and I believe he's correct--that complex languages are harder for adults to learn, and thus help you to identify interlopers. A cynical evolutionary psychologist would say \"to better enable you to kill strangers.\" This specific idea would be much harder to test, but again, I don't think it would be impossible to test.
Certainly on an individual level, cleverness with language could increase status, and thus provide a practical mechanism for languages, at least vocabulary and its use, to change. But does that also provide a mechanism for grammatical change? I'm assuming McWhorter's book would shed some light on that.", "timestamp": "1279688394"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=411357301212", "anchor": "fb-411357301212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Kiran: What if there's no advantage or disadvantage to grammar complexity in adulthood? What if there are just more ways for a language to be complicated than simple?", "timestamp": "1279718177"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=411358486212", "anchor": "fb-411358486212", "service": "fb", "text": "I suppose twin studies might be able to shed some light on the possible advantages of particular grammars, in theory anyway, If there's no pressure either way, I'd expect grammar to change in both directions over time. Do we see cases where a grammar grows more complex and then less over time? (Do we even have a way to study that? I'm thinking of spoken, not written languages.) Or, if one develops a measure for the complexity, are human languages distributed as one would expect?", "timestamp": "1279718724"}, {"author": "Rafa", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/friday-july-16-2010-why-do-languages-when-left-alone-become-more-complex-over-ti/410911396212/?comment_id=10151480814276213", "anchor": "fb-10151480814276213", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff, I just stumbled upon your article sorry if I am a bit late. It would seem languages develop complications as a result of speakers trying to eek out nuances. It follows that in much the same way as creoles do a great job of survival communication, smaller more homogeneous groups of individuals could add clarity to their language. Allow me to provide an example:
\"Ne puero gladium\" in Latin roughly means \"Do not trust a boy with a sword\", and \"Dulce bellum inexpertis\" means \"War is sweet to those not acquainted with it\". While I concede that there are omitted words, the inflections of the included words gives strong clues as to what the others should be.
I believe that this is the very reason that as languages develop they have a tendency to become more complex.
EDIT: While reading over what I wrote, it is still possible to see in English how our loss of cases makes the phrase \"Do not trust a boy with a sword\" confusing. The phrase \"Ne puero gladium\" means \"Do not entrust a sword to a boy\", pretty unambiguously. In English \"Do not trust a boy with a sword\" could also mean \"You shouldn't trust boys with swords\".", "timestamp": "1375300751"}]}