A History of the World in 100 Objects

For six hundred years two nations who share a small island have tried to retain their identity with language; an attempt which, bizarrely enough, has survived the death of one of the tongues involved. Any entity, be it a language or a pool of genes, which remains isolated from its fellows will begin to evolve away from them. Biological evolution has parallels in the origins of new languages from a shared ancestor. The analogy between linguistic and biological change is a deep one. Language barriers slow the movement of genes, and linguistic obstacles may mark a gen uric step. What is more, trees of language sometimes resemble those of genes, as a hint about a common history. The world has five thousand different languages. Many more — like Etruscan — are extinct. Like genes, languages evolve because they accumulate mutations. Some words change quickly while others are more conservative. Although the Victorians claimed that within a hundred years English and American would be mutually unintelligible, most languages retain enough of their identity tor a sufficient long period of time to be, like genes, clues about the past ...»