Innovations brought about by mutation are checked, tried,
assessed, and either adopted or scrapped. Cultural selection is done by
human communities; if we are faced with a new word, we size it up and then
make our own decision.
Language on the whole has eminently practical applications and is aimed
at promoting cooperation and information exchanges between human beings;
this is proved by the multitude of words for instruments and specialized
work tasks. Naturally, it is often technological innovation that stimulates
the invention of new words, required to define objects that didn't previously
exist. Some terms catch on, but others fall by the wayside: "horseless
carriage" has been dropped in favor of "automobile"just as
"airplane" has ousted "flying machine" (whereas "washing
machine" has been accepted).
Some words undergo a full-fledged trial by natural selection, which is completely
independent of cultural selection. Natural selection involves one set of
individuals surviving better than another, or reproducing more. In certain
exceptional circumstances, the ability to pronounce a word is a question
of life or death. In the Sicilian Vespers (1282), a revolt broke out against
the French occupying force in Palermo. The folk story is that, while searching
a local girl, a French soldier tried to take advantage of the situation
in a way that intensely irritated the girl's family, who were present. This
episode provoked an uprising and expulsion of the French from Palermo. Modern
historians exphin the uprising in more clinical terms as just one episode
in the Aragon/Angevin struggle for control of Sicily. To identify their
enemies, the Sicilians used to make them say ceci (chick peas). Inability
to get their tongues around the word cost many French people their lives.
The Bible recounts a similar story: Some Jews were able to recognize and
kill members of another hostile Jewish tribe by their inability to correctly
pronounce shibboleth. Overall, one can see only advantages in being
multilingual.
Language evolution contains much cultural selection
and very little natural selection. In general, shorter words are more popular
than long ones, and in certain areas the preference for shortness is very
pro nounced. This may be why the French have dropped the last syllable in
so many words, and why their Catalan neighbors are heading the same way.
(Like many Latin derivatives, including Italian, in French the emphasis
was once on the penultimate syllable of words. When the last syllable was
dropped, the penultimate became the last one. The habit of emphasizing the
last syllable is now so engrained that the modern French often stress it
even when they shouldn't. Modern Catalan, known as Catala, is very similar
to the ancient language spoken in the south of France, the Langue d'Oc and
adopted a similar custom.)