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Larger communities create more systematic languages.

Limor Raviv1, Antje Meyer1,2, Shiri Lev-Ari1,3

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

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PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Larger groups develop more systematic languages faster and more consistently than smaller groups. This suggests community size uniquely influences language evolution and diversity patterns.

Keywords:
community sizegrammatical structureinput variabilitylanguage evolutionlinguistic diversitysocial structure

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Cognitive science

Background:

  • Understanding language diversity is key for evolutionary scientists, linguists, and philosophers.
  • Previous research linked linguistic diversity to social environments, suggesting larger communities foster more systematic grammar.
  • However, confounding factors like network structure and second language learners complicated these findings.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the unique influence of community size on linguistic structure, independent of other social factors.
  • To experimentally test the hypothesis that larger groups develop more systematic languages.

Main Methods:

  • Experimental creation of new languages in laboratory settings.
  • Comparison of language formation in small versus larger interacting groups of participants.
  • Analysis of linguistic systematicity and development over time.

Main Results:

  • Larger groups developed more systematic languages compared to small groups.
  • Language formation was faster and more consistent in larger groups.
  • Small groups exhibited greater linguistic variability, indicating higher susceptibility to drift.

Conclusions:

  • Community size exerts a unique and significant influence on linguistic structure.
  • Increased community size may have been a crucial factor in the evolution of language.
  • Community size is a key predictor of language diversity patterns.