[…] since cultural evolution works far faster than biological evolution, and since it operates at a far more abstract level, the effects of cultural evolution on language could not be transferred to the gene pool. Therefore, biological language remained right where it was, while cultural language rode off in all directions. However, it was always there, under the surface, waiting to emerge whenever cultural language hit a bad patch, so to speak; and the worst patch that cultural language ever hit was the unprecedented, culture-shattering act of the European colonialists who set up the slave trade. But it is true that out of evil, good may come, and if they had not done this, we might never have found the one crucial clue to the history of our species.
- Bickerton (1981), Pag. 296