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Abstract:
Our understanding of language, its origins and subsequent evolution (including language change) is shaped not only
by data and theories from the language sciences, but also fundamentally by the biological sciences. Recent
developments in genetics and evolutionary theory offer both very strong constraints on what scenarios of language
evolution are possible and probable but also offer exciting opportunities for understanding otherwise puzzling
phenomena. Due to the intrinsic breathtaking rate of advancement in these fields, the complexity, subtlety and
sometimes apparent non-intuitiveness of the phenomena discovered, some of these recent developments have either
being completely missed by language scientists, or misperceived and misrepresented. In this short paper, we offer an
update on some of these findings and theoretical developments through a selection of illustrative examples and
discussions that cast new light on current debates in the language sciences. The main message of our paper is that
life is much more complex and nuanced than anybody could have predicted even a few decades ago, and that we
need to be flexible in our theorizing instead of embracing a priori dogmas and trying to patch paradigms that are no
longer satisfactory.
