Editing Evolutionary linguistics (section)

==Criticism==

Evolutionary linguistics has been criticised by advocates of (humanistic) structural and functional linguistics. [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] commented on 19th century evolutionary linguistics:
{{Blockquote|text=
"Language was considered a specific sphere, a fourth natural kingdom; this led to methods of reasoning which would have caused astonishment in other sciences. Today one cannot read a dozen lines written at that time without being struck by absurdities of reasoning and by the terminology used to justify these absurdities”<ref>{{cite book |last=de Saussure |first=Ferdinand |title=Course in general linguistics |place=New York |publisher=Philosophy Library |date=1959 |orig-year=First published 1916 |url=https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |isbn=9780231157278 |author-link=Ferdinand de Saussure |access-date=2020-03-04 |archive-date=2020-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200414113626/https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>|}}

[[Mark Aronoff]], however, argues that historical linguistics had its golden age during the time of Schleicher and his supporters, enjoying a place among the hard sciences, and considers the return of Darwinian linguistics as a positive development. [[Esa Itkonen]] nonetheless deems the revival of Darwinism as a hopeless enterprise:
{{Blockquote|text=
"There is ... an application of intelligence in linguistic change which is absent in biological evolution; and this suffices to make the two domains totally disanalogous ... &#91;Grammaticalisation depends on&#93; cognitive processes, ultimately serving the goal of problem solving, which intelligent entities like humans must perform all the time, but which biological entities like genes cannot perform. Trying to eliminate this basic difference leads to confusion.”<ref name=Itkonen_1999>{{cite journal |last=Itkonen |first=Esa |year=1999 |title=Functionalism yes, biologism no |journal=Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=219–221 |doi=10.1515/zfsw.1999.18.2.219|s2cid=146998564 |doi-access=free }}</ref>|}}

Itkonen also points out that the principles of natural selection are not applicable because language innovation and acceptance have the same source which is the speech community. In biological evolution, mutation and selection have different sources. This makes it possible for people to change their languages, but not their [[genotype]].<ref name=Itkonen_2011>{{cite journal|last1= Itkonen|first1= Esa|date= 2011|title= On Coseriu's legacy|url= http://www.romling.uni-tuebingen.de/energeia/zeitschrift/2011/pdf/On_Coserius_legacy.pdf|journal= Energeia|issue= III|pages= 1–29|doi= 10.55245/energeia.2011.001|s2cid= 247142924|access-date= 2020-01-14|archive-date= 2020-01-14|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200114133703/http://www.romling.uni-tuebingen.de/energeia/zeitschrift/2011/pdf/On_Coserius_legacy.pdf|url-status= dead}}</ref>