Can parasites influence the language we speak?
What do parasites and mountains have in common? They both keep populations apart and drive evolution, say researchers.
In the absence of geographical barriers such as mountains and oceans, parasite "wedges" keep populations of the same species apart, say Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico in the US. They claim this can provide the opportunity for populations and even new languages to evolve separately.
Of course, it is ore of a correlation, but interesting nonetheless. Down in the the NewScientist report, Mark Pagel suggests where the causation might come from:
But rather than parasites driving linguistic diversity, Pagel believes the explanation lies in an intrinsic human tendency to wage war. "I believe humans will separate and split whenever they can," Pagel told New Scientist.
"You've got all these people wandering around the Amazon all doing more or less the same thing – hunting and gathering – so why do they all speak different languages?
"There must be some ecological force driving them to live in separate groups. We are intensely competitive and when the environment will support a small group living separately I believe humans will do that," he says.
Now it might start to get really interesting: language diversity as a the result of cultural factor behind geographical isolation. I might go for that when the simulation gets complex enough.
