Race and language in the Darwinian tradition (and what Darwin's language–species parallels have to do with it)
Abstract
What should human languages be like if humans are the products of Darwinian evolution? Between Darwin’s day & like the peoples speaking them are higher or lower in an evolutionarily generated scale This paper charts some of the changes in the Darwinian tradition that transformed the notion of human linguistic equality from creationist heresy., our own, expectations about evolution’s imprint on language have changed dramaticallyIt is now a commonplace that, for good Darwinian reasons, no language is more highly evolved than any otherBut Darwin, in The descent of man, defended the opposite view: different languages.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.06.010
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Citations of this work
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Replies to the Critics: Roger M. White, M. J. S. Hodge, and Gregory Radick: Darwin’s argument by analogy: from artificial to natural selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, viii + 251 pp, $99.99 HB. [REVIEW]Gregory Radick, Jonathan Hodge & Roger M. White - 2022 - Metascience 31 (2):163-169.
References found in this work
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.Charles Darwin - 2018 - Mineola, New York: Courier Dover Publications.
On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.Charles Darwin - 1859 - San Diego: Sterling.
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.Charles Darwin - 1868 - Johns Hopkins University Press.
Patterns of Behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology.Richard W. Burkhardt & Hans Kruuk - 2007 - Journal of the History of Biology 40 (3):565-575.