How languages evolve Alex Gendler
In the biblical story
of the Tower of Babel,
all of humanity once spoke
a single language
until they suddenly split
into many groups
unable to understand each other.
We don’t really know if
such an original language ever existed,
but we do know that the thousands
of languages existing today
can be traced back
to a much smaller number.
So how did we end up with so many?
In the early days of human migration,
the world was much less populated.
Groups of people that shared
a single language and culture
often split into smaller tribes,
going separate ways in search
of fresh game and fertile land.
As they migrated and
settled in new places,
they became isolated from one another
and developed in different ways.
Centuries of living
in different conditions,
eating different food
and encountering different neighbors
turned similar dialects with
varied pronunciation and vocabulary
into radically different languages,
continuing to divide as populations
grew and spread out further.
Like genealogists, modern linguists
try to map this process
by tracing multiple languages
back as far as they can
to their common ancestor,
or protolanguage.
A group of all languages related
in this way is called a language family,
which can contain
many branches and sub-families.
So how do we determine whether
languages are related in the first place?
Similar sounding words don’t tell us much.
They could be false cognates
or just directly borrowed terms
rather than derived from a common root.
Grammar and syntax are
a more reliable guide,
as well as basic vocabulary,
such as pronouns,
numbers or kinship terms,
that’s less likely to be borrowed.
By systematically comparing these features
and looking for regular
patterns of sound changes
and correspondences between languages,
linguists can determine relationships,
trace specific steps in their evolution
and even reconstruct earlier languages
with no written records.
Linguistics can even reveal
other important historical clues,
such as determining the geographic origins
and lifestyles of ancient peoples
based on which of their words were native,
and which were borrowed.
There are two main problems linguists face
when constructing
these language family trees.
One is that there is
no clear way of deciding
where the branches
at the bottom should end, that is,
which dialects should be considered
separate languages or vice versa.
Chinese is classified as a single language,
but its dialects vary to the point
of being mutually unintelligible,
while speakers of Spanish and Portuguese
can often understand each other.
Languages actually spoken by living people
do not exist in neatly divided categories,
but tend to transition gradually,
crossing borders and classifications.
Often the difference between
languages and dialects
is a matter of changing political
and national considerations,
rather than any linguistic features.
This is why the answer to,
“How many languages are there?”
can be anywhere between 3,000 and 8,000,
depending on who’s counting.
The other problem is that
the farther we move back in time
towards the top of the tree,
the less evidence we have
about the languages there.
The current division
of major language families
represents the limit at which
relationships can be established
with reasonable certainty,
meaning that languages
of different families
are presumed not to be related
on any level.
But this may change.
While many proposals
for higher level relationships –
or super families – are speculative,
some have been widely accepted
and others are being considered,
especially for native languages
with small speaker populations
that have not been extensively studied.
We may never be able to determine
how language came about,
or whether all human languages
did in fact have a common ancestor
scattered through the babel of migration.
But the next time you hear
a foreign language, pay attention.
It may not be as foreign as you think.