Yes, Darwin -- thanks, Athel. And it's even "Darwin Day", says Crystal,
though he's a bit vague about for-whom and since-when.

Crystal focuses on "accent differences". What is the evolutionary
advantage in people from different places or groups having different
ways of speaking?
"Perceiving identities in the dark would have been critical...when
speech was first emerging." Mm. Maybe, but I would think at that stage
it would have been recognition of individuals rather than groups.
He also connects it to modern times: "A street-wise young man once told
me he knew not to round a corner into a street, or go into a club or
pub, if he heard a particular accent being used there." Unfriendly
people, looking for a fight, I guess. But a long way from palaeolithic
early-language situations.

But then I thought of Don Laycock (Australian linguist) who asked a
Sepik River man why all the people up and down the river, who seemed to
get along all right, didn't speak the same language. "That wouldn't be
good," was the answer, "We like to know where people come from." Laycock
also mentioned examples of Melanesians apparently deliberately tweaking
their local language in order to distinguish themselves from
neighbouring villages.

D.C.Laycock (1982) "Linguistic diversity in Melanesia: a tentative
explanation"
full reference here:
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02935652/file/26_Schapper_EA_YM_FINAL.pdf

I used to cite Laycock regularly to students to make the point that, in
Melanesia at least, linguistic differences were not seen as a problem,
and could even be useful.

So while I don't think accent differences _evolved_ to fit this
function, and I think most of them originate from ordinary sound change,
there is no doubt that they have long been useful in identifying members
of groups.

On 2024-02-12 22:46:03 +0000, Ross Clark said:

> Yes, Darwin -- thanks, Athel. And it's even "Darwin Day", says Crystal,
> though he's a bit vague about for-whom and since-when.

No doubt there is more than one organization that uses this term. The
one I know of is the University of Valencia. They have had a Darwin Day
each February since 1909.
They invited me to come to give their Darwin lecture in 2008. That was
actually the 100th Darwin Day, but they called it the 99th anniversary,
which sounds less grand.
(I don't suppose they celebrated it during the Civil War and the
dictatorship that followed, but something exists even if you don't
celebrate it.)

They wanted to get Richard Dawkins to come for the 100th anniversary,
but feared that he gets far more invitations than he wants to accept
and wouldn't accept an invitation to Valencia. I suggested that they
give him an honorary degree and that if they held the ceremony in
February he would almost certainly come and be willing to give the
Darwin lecture. I was right: they awarded him the degree and he gave
the lecture (I wasn't there: Valencia is more than 9 hours drive from
where I live, a bit far to go to hear a lecture, and I don't suppose
Richard Dawkins has heard of me, though I have been familiar with him
since 1976).

--
Athel cb

On 2024-02-13, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> On 2024-02-12 22:46:03 +0000, Ross Clark said:
>
>> Yes, Darwin -- thanks, Athel. And it's even "Darwin Day", says Crystal,
>> though he's a bit vague about for-whom and since-when.
>
> No doubt there is more than one organization that uses this term. The
> one I know of is the University of Valencia. They have had a Darwin Day
> each February since 1909.
> They invited me to come to give their Darwin lecture in 2008. That was
> actually the 100th Darwin Day, but they called it the 99th anniversary,
> which sounds less grand.

I bet they knew when to celebrate the millennium correctly.

--
Cats don't have friends. They have co-conspirators.
http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2015/05/31