Related papers: Simulation of language competition by physicists
We consider the spreading and competition of languages that are spoken by a population of individuals. The individuals can change their mother tongue during their lifespan, pass on their language to their offspring and finally die. The…
The current distribution of language size in terms of speaker population is generally described using a lognormal distribution. Analyzing the original real data we show how the double-Pareto lognormal distribution can give an alternative…
Recent computer simulations of the competition between thousands of languages are reviewed, and some new results on language families and language similarities are presented.
The distribution of living languages is investigated and scaling relations are found for the diversity of languages as a function of the country area and population. These results are compared with data from Ecology and from computer…
Using a bit-string model similar to biological simulations, the competition between different languages is simulated both without and with spatial structure. We compare our agent-based work with differential equations and the competing…
The physics of randomness and regularities for languages (mother tongues) and their lifetimes and family trees and for the second languages are studied in terms of two opposite processes; random multiplicative noise [1], and fragmentation…
In recent times, the research field of language dynamics has focused on the investigation of language evolution, dividing the work in three evolutive steps, according to the level of complexity: lexicon, categories and grammar. The Naming…
We investigate the evolution of competing languages, a subject where much previous literature suggests that the outcome is always the domination of one language over all the others. Since coexistence of languages is observed in reality, we…
We analyze the time evolution of a system of two coexisting languages (Castillian Spanish and Galician, both spoken in northwest Spain) in the framework of a model given by Abrams and Strogatz [Nature 424, 900 (2003)]. It is shown that,…
A simple spatial computer simulation model was recently introduced to study the evolution of the linguistic diversity. The model considers processes of selective geographic colonization, linguistic anomalous diffusion and mutation. In the…
Given the rapidly evolving landscape of linguistic prevalence, whereby a majority of the world's existing languages are dying out in favor of the adoption of a comparatively fewer set of languages, the factors behind this phenomenon has…
During the last decade, much attention has been paid to language competition in the complex systems community, that is, how the fractions of speakers of several competing languages evolve in time. In this paper we review recent advances in…
Methods and insights from statistical physics are finding an increasing variety of applications where one seeks to understand the emergent properties of a complex interacting system. One such area concerns the dynamics of language at a…
Most languages use the relative order between words to encode meaning relations. Languages differ, however, in what orders they use and how these orders are mapped onto different meanings. We test the hypothesis that, despite these…
Human languages have evolved to be structured through repeated language learning and use. These processes introduce biases that operate during language acquisition and shape linguistic systems toward communicative efficiency. In this paper,…
Our earlier language model is modified to allow for the survival of a minority language without higher status, just because of the pride of its speakers in their linguistic identity. An appendix studies the roughness of the interface for…
Languages emerge and change over time at the population level though interactions between individual speakers. It is, however, hard to directly observe how a single speaker's linguistic innovation precipitates a population-wide change in…
Time evolution of the cities and of the languages is considered in terms of multiplicative noise and fragmentation processes; where power law (Pareto-Zipf law) and slightly asymmetric log-normal (Gauss) distribution result for the size…
A formulation of bit-string models of language evolution, based on differential equations for the population speaking each language, is introduced and preliminarily studied. Connections with replicator dynamics and diffusion processes are…
The time evolution of Earth with her cities, languages and countries is considered in terms of the multiplicative noise and the fragmentation- processes, where the related families, size distributions, lifetimes, bilinguals, etc. are…