A world language family simulation

Søren Wichmann

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2021, vol. 572, issue C

Abstract: Following a methodological approach developed in collaboration with Dietrich Stauffer, some empirical observations on the dynamics of the world’s languages, in this case rates of language diffusion, are graphed and a computational model that might shed light on the underlying dynamics is developed. It is verified that it is possible to capture a similar kind of curve by simulating a spread of languages on a world landscape without any other assumptions than some simple parameters defining a semi-random walk and considering the world’s languages as belonging to a single family. It is found that the simple computational model can, indeed, go far in achieving realism with respect to the linguistic population of the globe throughout prehistory. Nevertheless, it is concluded that a model assuming multiple origins of the world’s languages is more probable.

Keywords: Migration; Language dynamics; Linguistic phylogenetics; Simulation methods; Language evolution; Prehistory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:572:y:2021:i:c:s0378437121001850

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2021.125913

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