Evolution of Language through Functional Communication

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The evolution of language demonstrates how words are created to serve functions, such as differentiating between identical items based on color. In industrialized societies, colors are arbitrary and important for communication, while non-industrialized groups do not place similar emphasis on color. Language evolves based on the needs of early tribes to efficiently communicate solutions to problems, whether aesthetic or functional. However, the lack of data on the evolution of many languages hinders a comprehensive understanding of language development, as only a small subset of languages have writing systems, which may not be modern.

Edward Gibson is a psycholinguistics professor at MIT and heads the MIT Language Lab. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(10:53) – Human language
(14:59) – Generalizations in language
(20:46) – Dependency grammar
(30:45) – Morphology
(39:20) – Evolution of languages
(42:40) – Noam Chomsky
(1:26:46) – Thinking and language
(1:40:16) – LLMs
(1:53:14) – Center embedding
(2:19:42) – Learning a new language
(2:23:34) – Nature vs nurture
(2:30:10) – Culture and language
(2:44:38) – Universal language
(2:49:01) – Language translation
(2:52:16) – Animal communication