Whereas in my last question I was looking for feedback from creationists, this time I'm soliciting feedback from evolutionists and linguists.
I want to be able to state the abract similarity between biological and language evolution. Note that when I say language evolution I mean the linguistic evolution of languages (eg. the Romance languages from Latin, English from PreGermanic, etc.)
not the evolutionary development of the ability to communicate in language in
Homo sapiens. I want to be precise and accurate in my terms and concepts.
Fortunately, it seems that there a lot of folks here with solid expertise in linguistics. And again, I would much prefer feedback from evolutionists (sorry, but I think I already gave the creationists a chance last time, and I'm not interested in a debate this time around).
So, can I correctly state this?:
Biological evolution is driven by selection pressures of the environment on random non-directed changes in the variation present in genes in a species.
Language evolution happens through the gradual accumulation of random non-directed changes in the variation present in the vocabulary, syntax, and grammar of a language.
I wanted to say "selection pressures on languages" but I don't know if that's true. To be sure, a language has to be passed to the next generation or it dies out (cf. most aboriginal languages worldwide), but it doesn't seem to be as significant as it is in biological evolution.
So please, if I'm wrong or way off base, feel free to correct me.