Do languages evolve or merely change?

- Language dynamics is a true evolutionary process, because it exhibits variation and selection.
- Language variation arises through social learning, performance deviation and creative language use.
- Language selection is based on communicative success, increased expressive power, and the reduction of cognitive effort.

The paper clarifies the point of view of evolutionary linguistics, a field that seeks causal explanations for language change as observed by historical linguists by using theoretical models gleaned from contemporary evolutionary biology, in particular replicator-dynamics and level formation.