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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Culture More Important for Language Development than Linguistic Rules, Says Newest Research

Amina Khan at the Los Angeles Times reports on research in linguistics that Culture trumps biology in language development:
"Researchers construct evolutionary trees for four linguistic groups and conclude that cultures, not innate preferences, drive the language rules humans create – contrary to the findings of noted linguists Noam Chomsky and Joseph Greenberg."
The lesson here for linguists is that foolish consistencies are the hobgoblin of....

Read the full article.