Alan Barnard
2010
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, pages 11-18, 2010
Languages are far more complex than they need to be for one-to-one communication. This paper attempts to answer the question as to why that should be. The answer, it is suggested, lies in the evolution of story-telling, legend and myth as culturally-important means of expression. ...MORE ⇓
Languages are far more complex than they need to be for one-to-one communication. This paper attempts to answer the question as to why that should be. The answer, it is suggested, lies in the evolution of story-telling, legend and myth as culturally-important means of expression. Myth may not mark the dawn of proto- or rudimentary language, or even the beginnings of full language, but its existence accounts at least in part for the evolution of linguistic complexity. Language co-evolved with mythology in symbolic frameworks which extended, to the limits of cognition, the capacity for verbal expression.