Methods of evolutionary biology can be applied to describe the
dynamics of language. In a sense, languages evolve like individuals in
a population: the fittest ones survive and spread, the less fit ones
get eliminated. The two driving forces of evolution, selection and
mutation (i.e. the mistakes when learning a language), can be
incorporated into a system of equations called the evolutionary
equations. One of the questions we can ask is how accurate children
have to learn the language of their parents in order for the
population to be able to maintain a coherent language? Another one is
what are the evolutionary forces that shape the Chomskian Universal
Grammar?