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HISTORY August Schleicher (1821-1868) and his ‘Stammbaumtheorie’ are often quoted as the starting point of evolutionary linguistics. Inspired by the natural sciences, especially Biology , Schleicher was the first to compare languages to evolving Species . He introduced the representation of language families as an evolutionary tree in articles published in 1853. The Stammbaumtheorie proved to be very productive for records. The field was quickly abandoned; famously, the '' Société Linguistique De Paris '' in 1866 refused to admit any further papers on the subject. But recent developments in technology have enabled researchers to implement and test evolutionary language models. STUDY METHODS One of these researchers is Professor Dr. Luc Steels , head of the research units of Sony CSL in Paris and the AI Lab at the Free University of Brussels ( VUB ). He and his team are investigating ways in which artificial agents self-organize languages with natural-like properties and how meaning can co-evolve with language. Their research is based on the hypothesis that language is a Complex Adaptive System that emerges through adaptive interactions between agents and continues to evolve in order to remain adapted to the needs and capabilities of the agents. This ongoing research has cumulated over the past ten years and has been implemented in Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) , a formalism for construction grammars that has been specially designed for the origins and evolution of language. Use in technology The approach of computational modeling and the use of robotic agents grounded in real life is theory independent. It enables the researcher to find out exactly what cognitive capacities are needed for certain language phenomena to emerge. It also forces the researcher to formulate his hypotheses in a precise and exact manner, whereas theoretical models often stay very vague. The precision and theory independence of these kinds of experiments make them of great value for the scientific debate. Using evidence in existing languages Some linguists have taken the approach of using similarities in existing languages. This includes the universal existence of Pronoun s and Demonstrative s, and the similarities in each languages process of Nominalization (The process of Verb s becoming Noun s) as well as the reverse, the process of turning nouns into verbs.(2005) Deutscher, Guy. ''The Unfolding of Language'', Owl Books. Some linguists, such as John McWhorter , have analyzed the evolution and construction of basic Communication methods such as Pidgin ization and Creolization .(2002) McWhorter, John. ''The Power of Babel: The Natural History of Language'', Random House Group. EVOLUTION FACTORS It seems that languages show different rates of change in different environments. Languages whose speakers are isolated, for example, apparently change more slowly— Icelandic is an outstanding example of this. Norsemen brought Icelandic to Iceland in the 9th century; as its speakers had little contact with the outside world, it has changed very little during its 1100 years of development. It has changed so little, in fact, that Icelandic texts written 800 years ago are intelligible to speakers of Icelandic in the 21st century. The language is also highly Inflected , and much more so than other Germanic Languages . REFERENCES
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