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Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0145   (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.)

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Abstract

Human language is unique among the communication systems of the natural world: it is socially learned and, as a consequence of its recursively compositional structure, offers open-ended communicative potential. The structure of this communication system can be explained as a consequence of the evolution of the human biological capacity for language or the cultural evolution of language itself. We argue, supported by a formal model, that an explanatory account that involves some role for cultural evolution has profound implications for our understanding of the biological evolution of the language faculty: under a number of reasonable scenarios, cultural evolution can shield the language faculty from selection, such that strongly constraining language-specific learning biases are unlikely to evolve. We therefore argue that language is best seen as a consequence of cultural evolution in populations with a weak and/or domain-general language faculty.

Keywords: language; communication; language faculty; cultural evolution; biological evolution

@article{smithKirby08culturalEvolution,
  author={Kenny Smith and Simon Kirby},
  title={Cultural evolution: implications for understanding the human language faculty and its evolution},
  journal={Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences},
  year={2008},
  month={NOV 12},
  volume={363},
  number={1509},
  pages={3591-3603},
  doi={10.1098/rstb.2008.0145},
  url={http://groups.lis.illinois.edu/amag/langev/paper/smithKirby08culturalEvolution.html},
  keywords={language; communication; language faculty; cultural evolution; biological evolution}
}