Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Some researchers think that the evolution of languages can be understood by treating them like genomes — but many linguists don't want to hear about it. "In the past five to ten years, more and more non-linguists such as Pagel have used the computational tools with which they model evolution to take a crack at languages. And one can see why. Like biological species, languages slowly change and sometimes split over time. Darwin's Galapagos finches evolved either large beaks or small; Latin amor became French amour and Italian amore. Darwin himself noted the 'curious parallel' between the evolution of languages and species in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex."