Origin & Evolution of Languages

[Nik Taylor]

Nicholas Widdows wrote:
> it probably has no great amount of natural
> selection. (And of course it's not progressive.) But many of us call it
> "evolution" because we use the word to refer to continuing change or
> development.

Natural selection doesn't make species better.  It makes species *better
suited for their environment*.  Language is a part of culture.  Culture
is not constant, it changes due to contact with other cultures, among
other factors.  Now, as it changes, what it "wants" in a language
changes.  Just as subterranean animals lose their eyes, a language in a
culture becoming more egalitarian will lose a formal/informal
distinction.  In English, this also resulted in an inadvertent loss of
singular/plural distinction in 2nd person.  In some dialects of Spanish,
_usted_ is being lost, same phenomenon, later time-period, similar
cause.  Granted, not all changes can be connected with that, and
probably more examples of random change exist in linguistic evolution
than in biological evolution.

--
Happy that Nation, - fortunate that age, whose history is not diverting
-- Benjamin Franklin
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