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Are the World's Languages Consolidating? The Dynamics and Distribution of Language Populations

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  • Clingingsmith, David

    (Case Western Reserve University)

Abstract

Scholars have conjectured that the return to speaking a language increases with the number of speakers. Long-run economic and political integration would accentuate this advantage, increasing the population share of the largest languages. I show that, to the contrary, language size and growth are uncorrelated except for very small languages (<35,000 speakers). I develop a model of local language coordination over a network. The steady-state distribution of language sizes follows a power law and precisely fits the empirical size distribution of languages with ≥35,000 speakers. Simulations suggest the extinction of 40% of languages with <35,000 speakers within 100 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Clingingsmith, David, 2017. "Are the World's Languages Consolidating? The Dynamics and Distribution of Language Populations," SocArXiv et37r_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:et37r_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/et37r_v1
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