ABSTRACT
Language is a complex behavioral repertoire in a cognitively advanced species. The
sounds, words, and syntactic patterns of language vary quite widely across human
groups, who have developed different linguistic patterns over a long stretch of time
and physical separation (Sapir, 1921). Explanations for this variation derive from
two very different traditions. In the first, many language scientists have sought
to abstract away from this observed variability to discern core characteristics of
language, which are universal and perhaps genetically fixed across people (from
Chomsky, 1957 to Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2001). The second tradition
sees variability as the mark of an intrinsically adaptive system. For example,
Beckner et al. (2009) argue that language should be treated as being responsive to
socio-cultural change in real time. Instead of abstracting away apparently superficial
variability in languages, this variability may be an echo of pervasive adaptation,
from subtle modulation of real-time language use, to substantial linguistic change
over longer stretches of time. This second tradition places language in the broader
sphere of human behavior and cultural products in a time when environmental
constraints have well-known effects on many aspects of human behavior (see
Triandis, 1994 for review).1
