Our Culture Is in Our Genes
This is Matt Ridley writing in the WSJ:
Dr. Pagel’s calls language “one of the most powerful, dangerous and subversive traits that natural selection has ever devised.”… Language is a “technology for rewiring other people’s minds…without either of you having to perform surgery.” But natural section was unlikely to favor such a technology if it helped just the speaker, or just the listener, at the expense of the other. Rather, he says that, just as the language of the genes promotes its own survival via a larger cooperative entity called the body, so language itself endures via the survival of the individual and the tribe.
Languages evolve, just as genes do, changing gradually over time. But 7,000 different human tongues nevertheless seem excessive. Dr. Pagel’s explanation is that, since language serves the interests of the group, when a new tribe splits off from the rest of a society, the people in the new tribe deliberately differentiate themselves the better to unite.
Fascinating thesis.
The Tower of Babel explained.
Splinter groups developed new languages to differentiate themselves from the group they left? I would have thought the problem associated with developing new languages would offset any gains. However, I do see how language is an effective ways to feel inclusive within your group and exclusive of outsiders. It is easier for an army to demonize their opponent when the enemy neither looks like nor talks like their comrades.
very interesting
Does this mean that teenagers are a splinter group?