Study of the origin and development of languages.
Questions tagged [evolutionary-linguistics]
41 questions
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Timescale for language divergence at ~10,000 years: Polynesian languages vs languages of the Americas?
I want to make it clear from the start that I'm not any kind of expert in linguistics or history, which is why I'm asking this question here. (Perhaps it's because of my physics background that I'm wondering about "characteristic timescales.")
I've…
Jim Pivarski
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From an evolutionary (language) standpoint, of what use are homonyms?
A homonym is a word which shares the same pronunciation as another word or words, but has a different spelling, e.g. "to", "too", "two".
I wonder why languages have homonyms in the first place. What is the use of them, from an evolution of language…
EddieN120
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What are the counterpart of Genotype and phenotype in a language?
Considering that languages evolved just as species did complying with Darwin Natural Selection, what are the Genotype and phenotype when it comes to languages?
Vicyan
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