Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 39:2/3 (2012) ► pp.341–368

‘All Languages Are Equally Complex’

The rise and fall of a consensus

| University of Edinburgh
| University of Washington

Throughout most of the history of the discipline, linguists have had little hesitation in comparing languages in terms of their relative complexity, whether or not they extrapolated judgements of superiority or inferiority from such comparisons. By the mid 20th century, however, a consensus had arisen that all languages were of equal complexity. This paper documents and explains the rise of this consensus, as well as the reasons that have led to it being challenged in recent years, from various directions, including language diversity, as analysed by Daniel Everett; arguments about Creoles and Creoloids, as put forward by Peter Trudgill, and others; and views from generative linguistics and evolutionary anthropology.

Published online: 23 November 2012
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.39.2-3.08jos
References
Akmajian, Adrian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, Robert Harnish et al.
1997 Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Andresen, Julie Tetel
1990 Linguistics in America, 1769–1924: A critical history. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark C.
2001 The Atoms of Language: The mind’s hidden rules of grammar. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Baltin, Mark & Anthony Kroch
eds. 1989 Alternative Conceptions of Phrase Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek
1984 “The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 71.173–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Language and Human Behavior. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Bisang, Walter
2009 “On the Evolution of Complexity: Sometimes less is more in East and mainland Southeast Asia”. Sampson et al., eds. 2009.34–39.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933 Language. New York: Henry Holt & Co..Google Scholar
Boas, Franz
1911 “Introduction”. Handbook of American Indian Languages, Part I1, by Franz Boas, with illustrative sketches by Roland B. Dixon, P. E. Goddard, William Jones & Truman Michelson, John E. Swanton & William Thalbitzer (= Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40), 1–83. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
1938 The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bunzl, Matti
1996 “Franz Boas and the Humboldtian Tradition: From Volksgeist and Nationalcharakter to an Anthropological Concept of Culture”. Volksgeist as Method and Ethic: Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition, ed. by George W. Stocking, Jr., 17–78. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Burnouf, Eugène
1825a Review of Franz Bopp, “Vergleichende Zergliederung der Sanskrita-Sprache und der mit ihm verwandten Sprachen, Erste Abhandlung […]”, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 1825, 117–148. Journal Asiatique 61.52–62, 113–124.Google Scholar
1825b Review of Franz Bopp, Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der Sanskrita-Sprache, (Berlin: F. Dümmler 1824) Journal Asiatique 61.298–314, 359–371.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1959 Review of B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1957) Language 351.26–57.Google Scholar
1965 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
1980 “Discussion”. Language and Learning: The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky ed. by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, 73–83. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1991 “Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation”. Freidin, ed. 1991.417–454.Google Scholar
2004 The Generative Enterprise Revisited: Discussions with Riny Huybregts, Henk van Riemsdijk, Naoki Fukui and Mihoko Zushi. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle
1968 The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1996 “The ‘Antisymmetric’ Program: Theoretical and typological implications”. Journal of Linguistics 321.447–465. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colapinto, John
2007 “The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?”. The New Yorker 16 April, 120–137.Google Scholar
Covington, Michael & Mark Rosenfelder
2010 “Are All Languages Equally Complex, or are some more primitive than others?”. [URL] Accessed 16. Sept. 2011.
Darwin, Charles
1871 The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 21 vols. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
DeGraff, Michel
2001 “On the Origin of Creoles”. Linguistic Typology 51.213–310.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Guy
2010 Through the Language Glass: Why the world looks different in other languages. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W.
1972 The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1984 Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a field worker. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1997 The Rise and Fall of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E.
1980 “Word Order in Generative Grammar”. Journal of Linguistic Research 11.33–54.Google Scholar
Everett, Daniel L.
2005 “Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another look at the design features of human language”. Current Anthropology 461.621–646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and language in the Amazonian jungle. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
2009 “Pirahã Culture and Grammar: A response to some criticisms”. Language 851.405–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje
2010 Review of Sampson et al., eds. (2009). Language 861.748–752.Google Scholar
Fortson, Benjamin W.
1997 Indo-European Language and Culture: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Freidin, Robert
ed. 1991 Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. & Robert Rodman
1983 An Introduction to Language. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Gabelentz, Georg von der
1891 Die Sprachwissenschaft: Ihre Aufgaben, Methoden und bisherigen Ergebnisse. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.Google Scholar
Gil, David
2001 “Creoles, Complexity, and Riau Indonesian”. Linguistic Typology 51.325–371.Google Scholar
2007 “Creoles, Complexity and Associational Semantics”. Deconstructing creole: New horizons in language creation ed. by Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews & Lisa Lim, 67–108. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “How Complex Are Isolating Languages?”. Miestamo et al., eds. 2008.109–131.Google Scholar
2009 “How Much Grammar Does it Take to Sail a Boat?”. Sampson et al., eds. 2009.19–33.Google Scholar
Gonda, Jan
1948 “The Comparative Method as Applied to Indonesian Languages”. Lingua 11.86–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H.
1960 “A Quantitative Approach to the Morphological Typology of Language”. International Journal of American Linguistics 261.192–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, Ken
1976 “The Adjoined Relative Clause in Australia”. Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages ed. by R. M. W. Dixon, 78–105. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky & W. Tecumseh Fitch
2002 “The Faculty of Language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?”. Science 2981.1569–1579. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John A.
2004 Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hermann, Eduard
1895 “Gab es im Indogermanischen Nebensätze?”. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 331.481–535.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F.
1958 A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1979 “Introduction”. Whitney (1979 [1875]), v–xx. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert & Amy Weinberg
1981 “Case Theory and Preposition Stranding”. Linguistic Inquiry 121.55–92.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James
1982 Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Humboldt, Wilhelm von
1823, 1824 “Ueber die in der Sanskrit-Sprache durch die Suffixa twâ und yâ gebildeten Verbalformen”. Indische Bibliothek 11.433–473, 21.71–134.Google Scholar
1825 [1822] “Ueber das Entstehen der grammatischen Formen, und ihren Einfluss auf die Ideenentwicklung”. Abhandlungen der historisch-philologischen Klasse der königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin aus dem Jahren 1822 und 1823, 401–430. Berlin.Google Scholar
1826 “Lettre à Monsieur Abel-Rémusat”, 7 mars 1826. Sections 1–7, 20–23 and 27–28 published as “Sur le génie grammatical de la langue chinoise, comparé à celui des autres langues” in Journal Asiatique 91 (1826), 115–123. [First complete publication: Lettre à Monsieur Abel Rémusat. sur la nature des formes grammaticales en général et sur le génie de la langue chinoise en particulier par monsieur Guillaume de Humboldt. Observations sur quelques passages de la lettre précédente, par M. A[bel] R[émusat], Paris: Doudey-Dupré 1827.]Google Scholar
Hutton, Christopher M.
1999 Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-tongue fascism, race and the science of language. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1929 Remarques sur l’évolution phonologique du russe comparée à celle des autres langues slaves. (= Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague, 2.) Prague. (Repr. in Jakobson, Selected Writings, I: Phonological studies, 2nd ed., 7–116, The Hague: Mouton 1971.)Google Scholar
1959 “Boas’ View of Grammatical Meaning”. The Anthropology of Franz Boas: Essays on the centennial of his birth ed. by Walter Goldschmidt, 139–145. Menasha, Wis.: American Anthropological Association. (Repr. in Jakobson, Selected Writings, II: Word and language, 477–488, The Hague: Mouton 1971.)Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1894 Progress in Language, with special reference to English. London: Swan Sonnenschein; New York: Macmillan. (New ed. with an Introduction by James, D. McCawley. Foreword and bibliography by Konrad Koerner, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins 1993.)Google Scholar
Joseph, John E.
1999 “A Matter of Consequenz: Humboldt, race and the genius of the Chinese language.” Historiographia Linguistica 261.89–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012a “Small Universes and Big Individuals: Locating Humboldt in evolving conceptions of language and Individualität ”. Wilhelm von Humboldt: Individualität und Universalität ed. by Ute Tintemann & Jürgen Trabant, 95–111. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012b Saussure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kager, René
1999 Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lauzon, Matthew
2010 Signs of Light: French and British theories of linguistic communication, 1648–1789. Ithaca, N.Y. & London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Maddieson, Ian
1984 Patterns of Sound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Issues of Phonological Complexity: Statistical analysis of the relationship between syllable structures, segment inventories, and tone contrasts”. Experimental Approaches to Phonology ed. by Maria Josep Solé, Patrice Speeter Beddor & Manjari Ohala, 93–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Malmberg, Bertil
1964 New Trends in Linguistics: An orientation. Transl. by Edward Carney. Stockholm & Lund: Naturmetodens Språkinstitut. [Orig. publication as Nya vägar inom språkforskningen (Stockholm: Svenska Bokförlaget; Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard 1959); this transl. based on 2nd ed. of 1962.]Google Scholar
Martinet, André
1962 A Functional View of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A.
1973 “Tonogenesis in Southeast Asia”. Consonant Types and Tone ed. by Larry M. Hyman, 71–95. Los Angeles: Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics, No. 1.Google Scholar
McMahon, April M. S.
1994 Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McWhorter, John H.
2007 Language Interrupted: Signs of nonnative acquisition in standard language grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messing, Gordon M.
1951 “Structuralism and Literary Tradition”. Language 271.1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miestamo, Matti, Kaius Sinnemäki & Fred Karlsson
eds. 2008 Language Complexity: Typology, contact, change. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, George A. & Noam Chomsky
1963 “Finitary Models of Language Users”. Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, vol. II1, ed. by R. Duncan Luce, Robert R. Bush & Eugene Galanter, 419–491. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea
2008 The Boundaries of Babel: The brain and the enigma of impossible languages. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muysken, Pieter
1988 “Are Creoles a Special Type of Language?”. Newmeyer, ed. 1898.285–301.Google Scholar
Nevins, Andrew A., David Pesetsky & Cilene Rodrigues
2009 “Pirahã Exceptionality: A reassessment”. Language 851.355–404. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick J.
ed. 1988 Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey. Volume II1: Linguistic Theory: Extensions and implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2011 “Can One Language Be ‘More Complex’ than Another?”. Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Nordlinger, Rachel
2006 “Spearing the Emu Drinking: Subordination and the adjoined relative clause in Wambaya”. Australian Journal of Linguistics 261.5–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolsky & Mark Aronoff
1989 Contemporary Linguistics: An introduction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Olender, Maurice
1994 Les langues du Paradis: Aryens et Sémites – un couple providentiel, 2nd ed., Paris: Gallimard/Le Seuil. [English version, Languages of Paradise: Aryans and Semites: A match made in heaven, transl. by Arthur Goldhammer (New York: The Other Press 2002).]Google Scholar
2009 Race sans histoire. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Passy, Paul
1890 Étude sur les changements phonétiques et leurs caractères généraux. Paris: Firmin-Didot.Google Scholar
Rémusat, Jean Pierre Abel
1824 Review of Humboldt (1825, 1823–1824). Journal Asiatique 51.51–61.Google Scholar
Riddle, Elizabeth M.
2008 “Complexity in Isolating Languages: Lexical elaboration vs. grammatical economy”. Miestamo et al., eds. 2008.133–151.Google Scholar
Ridley, Matt
1999 Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 chapters. London: Fourth Estate.Google Scholar
Riemsdijk, Henk van
1978 A Case Study in Syntactic Markedness: The binding nature of prepositional phrases. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian
1999 “Verb Movement and Markedness”. Language Creation and Language Change: Creolization, diachrony, and development ed. by Michel DeGraff, 287–327. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sampson, Geoffrey
2009a “An Interview with Dan Everett”. Sampson et al., eds. 2009.213–229.Google Scholar
2009b “A Linguistic Axiom Challenged”. In Sampson et al. eds. 2009.1–18.Google Scholar
Sampson, Geoffrey, David Gil & Peter Trudgill
eds. 2009 Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward
1921 Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt & Brace.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
1916 Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. by Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye, with the assistance of Albert Riedlinger. Lausanne & Paris: Payot. (2nd ed. 1922.) [English transl., Course in General Linguistics by Wade Baskin (New York: Philosophical Library 1959).]Google Scholar
Saussure, Léopold de
1899 Psychologie de la colonisation française, dans ses rapports avec les sociétés indigènes. Paris: Félix Alcan.Google Scholar
Schlegel, Friedrich von
1847 The Philosophy of Life, and Philosophy of Language, in a course of lectures. Transl. by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison. London: Henry G. Bohn; New York: Harper & Brothers 1855 [Orig. publ. as Philosophie des Lebens, in funfzehn Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1827; and Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere über Philosophie der Sprache und des Wortes (Wien: Carl Schaumburg 1830).]Google Scholar
Schuchardt, Hugo
1980 Pidgin and Creole Languages: Selected essays. Ed. & transl. by G. G. Gilbert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna
1998 “Variation in Major Constituent Order: A global and a European perspective”. Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe: Empirical approaches to language typology ed. by Anna Siewierska, 475–551. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Neil
1999 Chomsky: Ideas and ideals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trager, George L.
1948 Review of Lingua, volume I1. International Journal of American Linguistics 141.207–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1955 “Language”. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. XIII1, 695–702.Google Scholar
Trager, George L. & Joshua Whatmough
1966 “Language”. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. XIII1, 697–704.Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa
1989 “Parameters of Phrase Structure”. Baltin & Kroch, eds. 1989.263–279.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
1975 Accent, Dialect, and the School. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
1983 On Dialect: Social and geographical perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2011 Sociolinguistic Typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walls, Laura Dassow
2009 The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the shaping of America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wells, Rulon
1954 “Archiving and Language Typology”. International Journal of American Linguistics 201.101–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whitney, William Dwight
1875 The Life and Growth of Language: An outline of linguistic science. New York: D. Appleton.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 22 other publications

Benedict, Lauryn & Nadje A Najar
2019. Are commonly used metrics of bird song complexity concordant?. The Auk 136:1 DOI logo
Coloma, Germán
2017. Complexity trade-offs in the 100-language WALS sample. Language Sciences 59 ► pp. 148 ff. DOI logo
Frajzyngier, Zygmunt
2021. Functional Domains, Functions, and the Notion of Complexity: The Systems of Reference. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
Grieve, Jack
2023. Situational diversity and linguistic complexity. Linguistics Vanguard 9:s1 ► pp. 73 ff. DOI logo
Joseph, John E.
2017. Extended/distributed cognition and the native speaker. Language & Communication 57 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Joseph, John E.
2021. Why Does Language Complexity Resist Measurement?. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
Kilarski, Marcin & Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk
2012. On extremes in linguistic complexity. Historiographia Linguistica 39:2-3 ► pp. 279 ff. DOI logo
Koplenig, Alexander, Sascha Wolfer & Peter Meyer
2023. A large quantitative analysis of written language challenges the idea that all languages are equally complex. Scientific Reports 13:1 DOI logo
Krämer, Philipp
2013. Creole exceptionalism in a historical perspective – from 19th century reflection to a self-conscious discipline. Language Sciences 38 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Lavidas, Nikolaos
2018. Reorganising voice in the history of Greek. In Reorganising Grammatical Variation [Studies in Language Companion Series, 203], ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
Leal, Ednei de Souza & Renato Miguel Basso
2021. Complexidade linguística: o que é e como medir?. In Estudos linguísticos da/na Fronteira Sul, ► pp. 102 ff. DOI logo
McElvenny, James
2015. The application of C.K. Ogden’s semiotics in Basic English. Language Problems and Language Planning 39:2 ► pp. 187 ff. DOI logo
McElvenny, James
2017. Linguistic Aesthetics from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century: The Case of Otto Jespersen’s “Progress in Language”. History of Humanities 2:2 ► pp. 417 ff. DOI logo
McElvenny, James
2021. Language Complexity in Historical Perspective: The Enduring Tropes of Natural Growth and Abnormal Contact. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
Newmeyer, Frederick J.
2021. Complexity and Relative Complexity in Generative Grammar. Frontiers in Communication 6 DOI logo
Oh, Yoon Mi & François Pellegrino
2023. Towards robust complexity indices in linguistic typology. Studies in Language 47:4 ► pp. 789 ff. DOI logo
Pennycook, Alastair
2022. Critical educational linguistics. Educational Linguistics 1:2 ► pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
Pennycook, Alastair
2022. Critical applied linguistics in the 2020s. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 19:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Shcherbakova, Olena, Volker Gast, Damián E. Blasi, Hedvig Skirgård, Russell D. Gray & Simon J. Greenhill
2023. A quantitative global test of the complexity trade-off hypothesis: the case of nominal and verbal grammatical marking. Linguistics Vanguard 9:s1 ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Subbiondo, Joseph L.
2015. Language and Consciousness: The Perennial Relevance of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Language & History 58:1 ► pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Vereeck, Alexandra, Mark Janse, Katja De Herdt, Arnaud Szmalec, Cathy Hauspie & Wouter Duyck
2023. Why Plato needs psychology. Proposal for a theoretical framework underpinning research on the cognitive transfer effects of studying classical languages. Psihološka obzorja / Horizons of Psychology 32 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 129], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.