Paper on language evolution in Nature Reviews Genetics

[Andreea Calude]

Dear Funk-netters,

Following the recent fascinating discussion sparked by the Evans/Levinson
PNAS paper, I would like to take the somewhat bold opportunity to draw your
attention to another interesting paper which is similarly published in a
journal further afield of the typical focus of mainstream linguistics,
namely in *Nature Review Genetics*, which concerns language evolution and in
particular, what one can do with (/ask of) computational tools in this
research area. At the risk of being blamed for self-publicising work which
is coming out of the lab I am currently working in, please find below the
details of the paper.

With humble apologies,

Andreea Calude


Nature Reviews Genetics, advance online publication, Published online 7 May
2009 | doi:10.1038/nrg2560
Human language as a culturally transmitted replicator

Mark Pagel
<http://www.nature.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/nrg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nrg2560.html#top>
Abstract

Human languages form a distinct and largely independent class of cultural
replicators with behaviour and fidelity that can rival that of genes.
Parallels between biological and linguistic evolution mean that statistical
methods inspired by phylogenetics and comparative biology are being
increasingly applied to study language. Phylogenetic trees constructed from
linguistic elements chart the history of human cultures, and comparative
studies reveal surprising and general features of how languages evolve,
including patterns in the rates of evolution of language elements and social
factors that influence temporal trends of language evolution. For many
comparative questions of anthropology and human behavioural ecology,
historical processes estimated from linguistic phylogenies may be more
relevant than those estimated from genes.


-- 
Dr. Andreea S. Calude
School of Biological Sciences
Philip Lyle Building, Level 4
University of Reading
Reading
RG6 6BX
United Kingdom
--
acalude at gmail.com
www.calude.net/andreea/andreea.html