• Question: How did language actually evolve into different languages that we use today such as French and English? (for example)

    Asked by iamjasminetovey to Angela, Gopal, Hannah, Becky, Vince on 23 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by chloef25.
    • Photo: Hannah Little

      Hannah Little answered on 23 Jun 2013:

      Language hasn’t just evolved in our genes, but it has also evolved culturally. That is that every generation learns their language from the generation before, and just like in genetic evolution where some traits survive and some die out, some traits in language survive and some die out. If languages are spoken in different places then they “evolve” separately and grow away from each other until they become unintelligible. So even though English and French came from the same language at some point long long ago (called proto indoeuropean) we now can’t understand each other unless we learn both languages.

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