Overview
Linguistics Talk with Salikoko Mufwene
Saturday, May 30 • 2 PM • Lecture Hall • Free Admission
Explore the development of understanding through a parallel look at the evolution of language and symbols with linguist Dr. Salikoko S. Mufwene. Following the lecture, visit the exhibition Mother, Father, Please Help Me to gain a better understanding of the use of collage and repeating symbols as modular and adaptive meaning.
Languages change because humans continue to evolve and so do their ambient ecologies
Languages started with words, improving over pointing, under pressure to identify
entities and activities interlocutors wanted to communicate about; and grammars arose
from the patterns emerging from the ways words are used in phrases and longer
utterances. In the course of human biological evolution, increased cognition called for
larger vocabularies but often this consisted of extending the denotations of current
words, thus instantiating meaning change, such as when the English word mouth now
denotes not only a specific anatomical organ of animals but also “the point where [a
river] flows into a larger body of water” and even the opening at the tip of a bottle where
liquids can flow in or out. These changes have been characterized as part of the life of
words, which can also die out of use. It’s often easier to extend the application of
current words in specific contexts that justify the extension than to coin new ones. This
may apply to the arts, which are as creative as languages.
Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in
the Dept. of Linguistics, the Dept. of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, and the College at
the University of Chicago. His research area is evolutionary linguistics, focused on the
phylogenetic emergence of languages and language speciation, and on language
vitality. He has authored and (co-)edited dozens of books and has published hundreds
of articles, book chapters, and book reviews. He is a fellow of the Linguistic Society of
America, of the American Philosophical Society, and of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. He assumed the Chaire Mondes francophones at the Clollège de France
for the 2023-24 academic year.