Evolution of Language

Nature has posted a series of videos and articles on the evolution of language over time. It begins by explaining the story of Babel, the biblical explanation of the different languages of the world.

From the Nature summary of the videos and article:

As a language evolves, grammatical rules emerge and exceptions die out. Lieberman et al. have calculated the rate at which a language grows more regular, based on 1,200 years of English usage. Of 177 irregular verbs, 79 became regular in the last millennium. And the trend follows a simple rule: a verb’s half-life scales as the square root of its frequency. Irregular verbs that are 100 times as rare regularize 10 times faster. The emergence of a rule (such as adding –ed for the past tense) spells death for exceptional forms.

via: Mind Hacks