Innateness and culture in the evolution of language
Open accessAbstract
Human language arises from biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural transmission, but the interaction of these three processes has not been widely studied. We set out a formal framework for analyzing cultural transmission, which allows us to investigate how innate learning biases are related to universal properties of language. We show that cultural transmission can magnify weak biases into strong linguistic universals, undermining one of the arguments for strong innate constraints on language learning. As a consequence, the strength of innate biases can be shielded from natural selection, allowing these genes to drift. Furthermore, even when there is no natural selection, cultural transmission can produce apparent adaptations. Cultural transmission thus provides an alternative to traditional nativist and adaptationist explanations for the properties of human languages.
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The effects of biases on culture tend to strengthen through repeated transmission.
“Irrespective of their origin, the effects of biases on culture tend to strengthen through repeated transmission 99,104,105 .”
From Machine culture (2023) · cites this paper as [105]
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Self-citationWhale song shows language-like statistical structure
Arnon, I., Kirby, S., Allen, J., Garrigue, C., Carroll, E. L., & Garland, E. C. (2025) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.adq7055 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Self-citationDediu, D. (2011) · Human Biology · doi:10.1353/hub.2011.a438024 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Argumentation and the diffusion of counter-intuitive beliefs.
Claidière, N., Trouche, E., & Mercier, H. (2017) · Journal of Experimental Psychology General · doi:10.1037/xge0000323 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Languages and Genes: Reflections on Biolinguistics and the Nature-Nurture Question
Ladd, D. R., Dediu, D., & Kinsella, A. R. (2008) · Biolinguistics · doi:10.5964/bioling.8625 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Steele, J., & Uomini, N. (2009) · Cambridge Archaeological Journal · doi:10.1017/s0959774309000067 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2018) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.08.011 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Social Structure and Language Structure: the New Nomothetic Approach
Roberts, S. G., & Winters, J. (2012) · Psychology of Language and Communication · doi:10.2478/v10057-012-0008-6 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
The emergence of linguistic structure in an online iterated learning task
Beckner, C., Pierrehumbert, J. B., & Hay, J. B. (2017) · Journal of Language Evolution · doi:10.1093/jole/lzx001 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Dynamic Language Models for Continuously Evolving Content
Hombaiah, S. A., Chen, T., Zhang, M., Bendersky, M., & Najork, M. (2021) · ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) · doi:10.1145/3447548.3467162 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Computational Modeling of Learning Biases in Stress Typology
Staubs, R. (2021) · doi:10.7275/6042190.0 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Adult Learning and Language Simplification
Atkinson, M., Smith, K., & Kirby, S. (2018) · Cognitive Science · doi:10.1111/cogs.12686 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Self-citationLanguage as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task
Nölle, J., Fusaroli, R., Mills, G. J., & Tylén, K. (2020) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-020-0404-9 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2007-03-20
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 5241-5245
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC1829293
- OpenAlex
- W2106731506
- Cited by
- 442
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 590.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0544708)
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- cultural transmission, language evolution, innateness, language universals, natural selection, genetic drift, language learning, nativism, adaptationism, formal framework
- MeSH terms
- Culture, Biological Evolution, Humans, Language, Learning
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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