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The ecological drivers of variation in global language diversity

Author

Listed:
  • Xia Hua

    (Australian National University
    Australian National University)

  • Simon J. Greenhill

    (Australian National University
    Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)

  • Marcel Cardillo

    (Australian National University)

  • Hilde Schneemann

    (Australian National University
    Australian National University
    University of Groningen)

  • Lindell Bromham

    (Australian National University
    Australian National University)

Abstract

Language diversity is distributed unevenly over the globe. Intriguingly, patterns of language diversity resemble biodiversity patterns, leading to suggestions that similar mechanisms may underlie both linguistic and biological diversification. Here we present the first global analysis of language diversity that compares the relative importance of two key ecological mechanisms – isolation and ecological risk – after correcting for spatial autocorrelation and phylogenetic non-independence. We find significant effects of climate on language diversity, consistent with the ecological risk hypothesis that areas of high year-round productivity lead to more languages by supporting human cultural groups with smaller distributions. Climate has a much stronger effect on language diversity than landscape features, such as altitudinal range and river density, which might contribute to isolation of cultural groups. The association between biodiversity and language diversity appears to be an incidental effect of their covariation with climate, rather than a causal link between the two.

Suggested Citation

  • Xia Hua & Simon J. Greenhill & Marcel Cardillo & Hilde Schneemann & Lindell Bromham, 2019. "The ecological drivers of variation in global language diversity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-09842-2
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09842-2
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    Cited by:

    1. Fraenkel, Jon & Filer, Colin, 2022. "Prisoners of a distant past? Linguistic diversity and the time-depth of human settlement in Papua New Guinea," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Yuan Shen & Danyin Wang & Jiahui Wu & Tianshu Yu & Tao Li & Siyuan Li, 2021. "Regional Features and Spatial Distribution of Fifty-Eight Ethnic Groups in Southwest China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Santos, M.R.F. & Gomes, M.A.F., 2020. "A heuristic model for the scaling linguistic diversity-area," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 555(C).

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