Interlinguistic similarity and language death dynamics.pdf

a r X i v : p h y s i c s / 0 5 0 1 0 9 7 v 1 [ p h y s i c s .s o c - p h ] 1 8 J a n 2 0 0 5 Interlinguistic similarity and language death dynamics Jorge Mira? Departamento de F??sica Aplicada, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain A?ngel Paredes? Departamento de F??sica de Part??culas, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Dated: February 9, 2008) Abstract 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, contrary to the model’s initial prediction, a stable bilingual situation is possible if the languages in competition are similar enough. Similarity is described with a simple parameter, whose value can be estimated from fits of the data. PACS numbers: 89.65.-s ?Electronic address: fajmirap@usc.es ?Electronic address: angel@fpaxp1.usc.es 1 There is hard evidence that the number of languages in the world is shrinking. Of the roughly 6500 languages now spoken many of them are endangered or on the brink of extinction. The situation has attracted the interest of many researchers in the field of complex adaptive systems, who have analyzed language dynamics [1, 2]. Among them, Abrams and Strogatz [2] have recently proposed a simple and creative model for the dynamics of language death. In it, they consider a system of two languages competing with each other for speakers, where the attractiveness of a language increases with both its number of speakers and its perceived status (a parameter that reflects the social and economic opportunities afforded to its speakers). This model, which satisfactorily fits historical data on the decline of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Quechua and other endangered languages, predicts that one of the competing lan- guages will inevitably die out. The bilingual societies that d