Language driven by culture, not biology
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 10:56
in Paleontology & Archaeology
(PhysOrg.com) -- Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language.
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