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Re: Linguistic and Biological Systematics



That's one reason I brought up the analogy in the first place. If we can
agree on a classification methodology for languages (hah), then maybe we
might also be able to agree on a classification methodology for organisms,
using the same principle.

I don't think comparing linguistic evolution to biological evolution is as simple as one might like. Remember, English (and most modern languages) is both monophyletic (in the sense that the reason the same language is spoken in different parts of the world is due to a common origin - Britain) and polyphyletic (the English language is derived from multiple origins - Anglo-Saxon, Keltic, French, Latin, Greek...).

ZH


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