Origin & Evolution of Languages (was: Sociological Linguistics)

[Adam Hyllested]

McLaughlin (I think) wrote:

> Take a look at the historical linguistics textbooks.(...)
> The words "evolve/evolution" are never used with respect
> to the change over time from one fully modern, complex human language to
> another.

David Nettle in his new book 'Language Diversity' (which is, I admit,
not primarily about historical linguistics) seems to use the two terms
indiscriminately. He prefaces chapter II by telling us that he will now
deal with "language change". But the chapter itself is called "Language
evolution".

Adam Hyllested