Birth, Survival and Death of Languages by Monte Carlo Simulation

Year:    2008

Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 3 (2008), Iss. 2 : pp. 271–294

Abstract

Simulations mostly by physicists of the competition between adult languages since 2003 are reviewed. The Viviane and Schulze models give good and reasonable agreement, respectively, with the empirical histogram of language sizes. Also the numbers of different languages within one language family is modeled reasonably in an intermediate range. Bilingualism is now incorporated into the Schulze model. Also the rate at which the majority shifts from one language to another is found to be nearly independent of the population size, or to depend strongly on it, according to details of the Schulze model. Other simulations, like Nettle-Culicover-Nowak, are reviewed more briefly.

Journal Article Details

Publisher Name:    Global Science Press

Language:    English

DOI:    https://doi.org/2008-CiCP-7853

Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 3 (2008), Iss. 2 : pp. 271–294

Published online:    2008-01

AMS Subject Headings:    Global Science Press

Copyright:    COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press

Pages:    24

Keywords: