Daniel M. Abrams
2003
Nature 424:900, 2003
Thousands of the world's languages are vanishing at an alarming rate, with 90% of them being expected to disappear with the current generation1. Here we develop a simple model of language competition that explains historical data on the decline of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Quechua ...MORE ⇓
Thousands of the world's languages are vanishing at an alarming rate, with 90% of them being expected to disappear with the current generation1. Here we develop a simple model of language competition that explains historical data on the decline of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Quechua (the most common surviving indigenous language in the Americas) and other endangered languages. A linguistic parameter that quantifies the threat of language extinction can be derived from the model and may be useful in the design and evaluation of language-preservation programmes.