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The Rise and Fall of Languages by R. M. W. Dixon
This book puts forward a new way of looking at the emergence and development of human language since its beginnings over 100,000 years ago in terms of a state of equilibrium which was periodically 'punctuated'. Punctuations saw the expansion or split of peoples and of languages, most recently as a result of European colonisation and the globalisation of communication. Professor Dixon challenges many of the views currently held by linguists, archaeologists and geneticists, notably those concerning the usefulness of the 'family tree' model of language relationships and the recent speculation concerning the reconstruction of a 'proto-language'.
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First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
R.M.W. Dixon
65 books16 followersRobert Malcolm Ward Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics in the College of Arts, Society, and Education and The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He is also Deputy Director of The Language and Culture Research Centre at JCU.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 7, 2014
Here, by popular demand (see first comment below), is my review of this book.
This book is neither fish nor fowl (more like what David Lewis calls a "trouturkey"). Part of it is lament about how the discipline of linguistics has gone off the rails - too much faddish theorizing, not enough getting out into the field and making grammars and lexicons for the many still undocumented languages that are dying off at an alarming rate.
Another strand is a pleasing, not-too-technical (but not entirely untechnical) look for the general reader at how languages can differ from each other.
Thirdly, there is an intra-disciplinary polemic against lexicostatistics and glottochronology in general, and against Nostraticism (the posit of a particular language group that includes Indo-European and various others) in particular. Lexicostatistics and glottochronology are methods developed, and then apparently abandoned by many but not all comparative linguists, for determining the degree of relatedness of different languages and the time-frame for their divergence from each other. I'll come back to the grounds for his critique shortly.
Fourthly, and finally - and the reason why I was interested in reading this book in the first place - is a statement of a hypothesis about language change, namely, that it conforms to the pattern of punctuated equilibrium advanced in biology for the development of species. Dixon argues that for most of their history, languages change only slowly. These are equilibrium periods. At certain times, however, owing to developments in material culture, political ambitions, natural disasters, and various other 'external' factors, languages the equilibria are punctuated by periods of rapid change and may split into various branches that than develop more or less separately, becoming distinct branches. These punctuations are what give rise to the well-known family trees of languages. A subsidiary hypothesis to the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium is that in equilibrium periods, under certain conditions, languages in a given area will grow to resemble each other, eventually converging on a common prototype.
The punctuated equilibrium hypothesis, with the subsidiary convergence hypothesis, underlie some of Dixon's specific objections to lexicostatistics and glottochronology and Nostraticism. These latter are evidently committed to the traditional idea of the family tree of languages, which includes attempts to reconstruct the distant common ancestor of various languages. Language families (such as Indo-European) are thus hypothesized, and then the reconstructed proto-languages of the families are themselves compared, to posit higher-level families (including Nostratic), until eventually we might reach proto-World (or proto-Worlds, if language developed independently more than once).
Dixon argues that the convergence hypothesis means that the ancestor of a group of languages might not be a single language at all, but a linguistic area with several convergent languages in it. Some of those similarities might be genetic and hence evidence of a higher level ancestor, but some will be results of convergence and hence not evidence of genetic relatedness. Attempts to posit higher-level families are not just speculative in the way everyone understands, but much more so, because they have been conducted without adequate attention to the differences between genetic and convergent similarities.
These grounds for skepticism seem to me to be entirely well-founded, if his hypothesis of convergence is valid.
This book is neither fish nor fowl (more like what David Lewis calls a "trouturkey"). Part of it is lament about how the discipline of linguistics has gone off the rails - too much faddish theorizing, not enough getting out into the field and making grammars and lexicons for the many still undocumented languages that are dying off at an alarming rate.
Another strand is a pleasing, not-too-technical (but not entirely untechnical) look for the general reader at how languages can differ from each other.
Thirdly, there is an intra-disciplinary polemic against lexicostatistics and glottochronology in general, and against Nostraticism (the posit of a particular language group that includes Indo-European and various others) in particular. Lexicostatistics and glottochronology are methods developed, and then apparently abandoned by many but not all comparative linguists, for determining the degree of relatedness of different languages and the time-frame for their divergence from each other. I'll come back to the grounds for his critique shortly.
Fourthly, and finally - and the reason why I was interested in reading this book in the first place - is a statement of a hypothesis about language change, namely, that it conforms to the pattern of punctuated equilibrium advanced in biology for the development of species. Dixon argues that for most of their history, languages change only slowly. These are equilibrium periods. At certain times, however, owing to developments in material culture, political ambitions, natural disasters, and various other 'external' factors, languages the equilibria are punctuated by periods of rapid change and may split into various branches that than develop more or less separately, becoming distinct branches. These punctuations are what give rise to the well-known family trees of languages. A subsidiary hypothesis to the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium is that in equilibrium periods, under certain conditions, languages in a given area will grow to resemble each other, eventually converging on a common prototype.
The punctuated equilibrium hypothesis, with the subsidiary convergence hypothesis, underlie some of Dixon's specific objections to lexicostatistics and glottochronology and Nostraticism. These latter are evidently committed to the traditional idea of the family tree of languages, which includes attempts to reconstruct the distant common ancestor of various languages. Language families (such as Indo-European) are thus hypothesized, and then the reconstructed proto-languages of the families are themselves compared, to posit higher-level families (including Nostratic), until eventually we might reach proto-World (or proto-Worlds, if language developed independently more than once).
Dixon argues that the convergence hypothesis means that the ancestor of a group of languages might not be a single language at all, but a linguistic area with several convergent languages in it. Some of those similarities might be genetic and hence evidence of a higher level ancestor, but some will be results of convergence and hence not evidence of genetic relatedness. Attempts to posit higher-level families are not just speculative in the way everyone understands, but much more so, because they have been conducted without adequate attention to the differences between genetic and convergent similarities.
These grounds for skepticism seem to me to be entirely well-founded, if his hypothesis of convergence is valid.
June 20, 2015
Dixon proposes that Eldredge and Gould's punctuated equilibrium can be used to explain change in language on a macro-scale: periods of equilibrium, where languages do not qualitatively change are described by change through diffusion; punctuations, where several new languages suddenly appear or languages disappear, are described by the family-tree model.
The book shines in its criticism of the family-tree model and its overuse. Especially, chapters 3 and 4 on language diffusion and the family-tree model show that similarities between languages that are easily explainable by these being in constant contact with each other (diffusion) have been attributed, mostly likely mistakenly, to a common origin. Also useful is the criticism of formalism, including Chomsky's theories, and its methods in linguistics.
Dixon, however, quite generous with citations for most of the book, states a series of propositions (especially in the crucial chapter on modes of change in language) that leave it to the reader to figure out if these are, for example, mechanisms of change that have been rigorously proven in the field or just suppositions on his part. Perhaps, as with the change from ergative to accusative in a language, there is a wealth of evidence of all or most cases in a language appearing around the same time, but it is a shame he chooses to thoroughly justify only the former. As well, he sometimes gives explanations of exceptions to rules he posits, and how these are either insignificant or not actually exceptions; sometimes he merely mentions the existence of exceptions. The reader will have to look elsewhere to effectively assess his theory.
Another important gap is his theory of the origin of language: if one says conceptual categories developed first and only afterwards came language, some kind of justification must be given as to how thought can exist without language or at the very least a reference to another's position in that debate.
A minor (in the context of what he is trying to prove) problem: Dixon seems to have a superficial understanding of colonialism and how hierarchical societies "spread" their way of organizing themselves, leaving him to say that missionaries that introduced a game of UNO to a community in the Amazon led people to become competitive and leave their egalitarianism.
The book shines in its criticism of the family-tree model and its overuse. Especially, chapters 3 and 4 on language diffusion and the family-tree model show that similarities between languages that are easily explainable by these being in constant contact with each other (diffusion) have been attributed, mostly likely mistakenly, to a common origin. Also useful is the criticism of formalism, including Chomsky's theories, and its methods in linguistics.
Dixon, however, quite generous with citations for most of the book, states a series of propositions (especially in the crucial chapter on modes of change in language) that leave it to the reader to figure out if these are, for example, mechanisms of change that have been rigorously proven in the field or just suppositions on his part. Perhaps, as with the change from ergative to accusative in a language, there is a wealth of evidence of all or most cases in a language appearing around the same time, but it is a shame he chooses to thoroughly justify only the former. As well, he sometimes gives explanations of exceptions to rules he posits, and how these are either insignificant or not actually exceptions; sometimes he merely mentions the existence of exceptions. The reader will have to look elsewhere to effectively assess his theory.
Another important gap is his theory of the origin of language: if one says conceptual categories developed first and only afterwards came language, some kind of justification must be given as to how thought can exist without language or at the very least a reference to another's position in that debate.
A minor (in the context of what he is trying to prove) problem: Dixon seems to have a superficial understanding of colonialism and how hierarchical societies "spread" their way of organizing themselves, leaving him to say that missionaries that introduced a game of UNO to a community in the Amazon led people to become competitive and leave their egalitarianism.
January 30, 2008
Fave quote (regarding Nostraticists): "It is rather like someone reporting that the Queen of England moonlights as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson (which is why she declines all invitations to dinner parties)" (p 38).
This book provides a decent introduction to linguistics, and though peppered liberally with professional jargon, accomplishes its goal of appealing to a non-linguistic audience.
Dixon suggests that the biological theory of punctuated equilibrium provides a more accurate description of the evolution of language than the traditional comparative method. His argument is convincing on a lot of points, but I would like to know how professionals in his field responded to his ideas. He is highly critical of new directions in linguistics and is not at all shy about sharing those thoughts. I couldn't find any reviews of the book in linguistic or anthropological journals, though I'm sure there must be one somewhere.
Dixon is also critical of other fields, claiming that archaeologists, geneticists, and anthropologists "happily accept any family tree that is produced, without stopping to ask whether it is soundly based, and whether it is accepted by the majority of linguists" (p 43). However, he fails to cite any evidence to back up this statement, and in fact repeats that pattern throughout the book.
Overall, I would recommend the book to anyone is interested in linguistic theory; just be prepared to take it with a grain of salt.
This book provides a decent introduction to linguistics, and though peppered liberally with professional jargon, accomplishes its goal of appealing to a non-linguistic audience.
Dixon suggests that the biological theory of punctuated equilibrium provides a more accurate description of the evolution of language than the traditional comparative method. His argument is convincing on a lot of points, but I would like to know how professionals in his field responded to his ideas. He is highly critical of new directions in linguistics and is not at all shy about sharing those thoughts. I couldn't find any reviews of the book in linguistic or anthropological journals, though I'm sure there must be one somewhere.
Dixon is also critical of other fields, claiming that archaeologists, geneticists, and anthropologists "happily accept any family tree that is produced, without stopping to ask whether it is soundly based, and whether it is accepted by the majority of linguists" (p 43). However, he fails to cite any evidence to back up this statement, and in fact repeats that pattern throughout the book.
Overall, I would recommend the book to anyone is interested in linguistic theory; just be prepared to take it with a grain of salt.
October 26, 2013
This short book (more like a long essay) on typology is worth reading by any person interested in linguistics. To understand and accept (or reject) the punctuated equilibrium model one would have to know more and read a much more detailed presentation but to grasp the essence and get the motivation this book is just enough. What makes it particularly good are two sub-essays pointedly critical of (1) lexicostatistics and
glottochronology, and especially of the search for the nostratic proto-language, and also of (2) the now standard attitude of linguists who consider their short-lived theories more important than documenting languages which are about to extinct.
glottochronology, and especially of the search for the nostratic proto-language, and also of (2) the now standard attitude of linguists who consider their short-lived theories more important than documenting languages which are about to extinct.
May 16, 2014
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2294767.html[return][return]A brief book about language change, which dates back to 1997 but I don't know how fast the field moves. The author has two main points to make. First off, he compares the evolution of language to Steven Jay Gould's concept of punctuated equilibrium in biology: long periods of steady development with little change, interspersed with periods when the environment changes rapidly and organisms, or languages, must adapt equally rapidly to survive. The impact of Western colonialism is the most recent and largest such traumatic change to have hit the world's language groups and ddiversity.[return][return]His other main point is to propose an alternative to the "family tree" model of language relationships. It works well for Indeo-European (within limits) and also for the Austronesian languages of the Pacific; but he is sceptical, to put it politely, of Greenblatt's claims to have constructed family trees for the African and Amerindian languages, let alone the pretensions of Nostratic. Surely in most cases where different language groups exist side by side for centuries, it makes at least as much sense to consider a "linguistic area" where neighbouring speakers may steal vocabulary and grammar from each other. His example is Australia, the area he knows best, but I can see relevance for the Albanian / Macedonian / Bulgarian / Romanian relationship which I've always found fascinating. He makes the point that even Proto-Indo-European doesn't appear to have been homogenous - did the instrumental plural end with *-bhis or *-mis ?[return][return]Anyway, I found this rather more digestible than dear old C.-J. Bailey's essay collection. Must look out for more on this topic...
November 28, 2016
Out of any academic linguistic texts, this is probably the best we're gonna get. Dixon is a cutie, he writes in little (to large) tidbits about his life and opinions of other linguists as the book progresses in a way that helps. A lot of repetition and grammatical examples that I'm sure would've work for someone who is actually interested in the field. I got through it; it was fairly quick.
March 19, 2012
An interesting take on language change--accounts for areal similarities in terms of periods of political/social stability and accounts for differences between genetically related languages in terms of periods of political/social instability.
January 17, 2010
Too difficult to read.
February 17, 2011
More of a technical, linguistics nerd book, but still some pretty interesting stuff. Overall, though, it's not very memorable.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews