Psychology 4145 Cognitive Psychology s1

Lecture 23

This Week Accessing Reading Assignments Discussion of Assignments Book Review Project Assignments 1 and 3 Last Third of the Semester Today, Dunbar, Chapter 8 Wednesday, Michael Tomasello

of 8 Lecture 23

The Evolution of Languages Mutually incomprehensible tongues: e.g., Latin  French/Italian English now vs. Chaucer, Shakespeare Special Cases; These are written languages Tower of Babel 6-7th century B.C. Linguists believe all languages do have a common origin, which long predates Babel

of 8 Lecture 23

History of Languages http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/language/ Sir William Jones, Calcutta, late 1700s Learned Sanskrit, noticed similarities b/w Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin (e.g., brother, phrater, frater, brathir, bratre, bhrater) Indo-European language group = most European languages (except Basque, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian)+ southern Asia (e.g., Persian), ca. 5000-6000 B.C. Indo-European + other European (Basque, Uralic, etc.) and Asian language groups (Semitic, Altaic, Elemo- Dravidian) represent a “superfamily” called Nostratic, ca. 13,000 B.C. 7 other superfamilies “proto-World” tongue: attempt to construct a common ancestor of all 8 superfamilies (e.g., “tal”/”dal”) Why did languages diversify so much? Dialects appear as fast as we lose others

of 8 Lecture 23

More Examples

Language Hand English hænd Danish hand German hant Russian ruka Polish r ka Serbo-Croatian ruka Spanish Mano Italian mano Rumanian

of 8 Lecture 23

http://www.friesian.com/trees.htm

of 8 Lecture 23

Migration, Language Families, and DNA Australia and Amerind languages borne of migration out of Africa, ca. 100,000 YA ca. 10,000 YA, development of farming ca. 8,000 YA , end of the last Ice Age Élite dominance, Genghis Khan, 12th century Until recently, wholesale migration of peoples responsible for spread and diversification of language DNA Rachel Cann et al.: Range of variation in mitochondrial DNA is much greater in Africa than elsewhere; Europe, Asia, Australia, Americas seem to be part of a closely related family group! “African Eve” ca. 150,000-200,000 YA = common ancestor of all Put language trees on top of genetic trees and you get a reasonably good fit Genes, Peoples, and Languages By LUIGI LUCA CAVALLI-SFORZA North Point Press

of 8 Lecture 23

Dialects Intimately related to local subcultures “bagde of group membership” (avoid free-riders) Hamilton’s Rule: cost of helping a relative to reproduce is less than the gain to the relative, then it pays to behave in a helpful way (kin selection) Most higher organisms, humans included, show a strong preference for relatives “Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me and my brother and my cousin against…”