Language extinction and linguistic fronts

Modeling language ideologies for the dynamics of languages in contact

In multilingual societies, it is common to encounter different language varieties. Various approaches have been proposed to discuss different mechanisms of language shift. However, current models exploring language shift in languages in contact often overlook the influence of language ideologies. Language ideologies play a crucial role in understanding language usage within a cultural community, encompassing shared beliefs, assumptions, and feelings toward specific language forms. These ideologies shed light on the social perceptions of different language varieties expressed as language attitudes. In this study, we introduce an approach that incorporates language ideologies into a model for contact varieties by considering speaker preferences as a parameter. Our findings highlight the significance of preference in language shift, which can even outweigh the influence of language prestige associated, for example, with a standard variety. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of the degree of interaction between individuals holding opposing preferences on the language shift process. Quite expectedly, our results indicate that when communities with different preferences mix, the coexistence of language varieties becomes less likely. However, variations in the degree of interaction between individuals with contrary preferences notably lead to non-trivial transitions from states of coexistence of varieties to the extinction of a given variety, followed by a return to coexistence, ultimately culminating in the dominance of the previously extinct variety. By studying finite-size effects, we observe that the duration of coexistence states increases exponentially with the network size. Ultimately, our work constitutes a quantitative approach to the study of language ideologies in sociolinguistics.

The Role of Language in Structuring Social Networks Following Market Integration in a Yucatec Maya Population

Language is the human universal mode of communication, and is dynamic and constantly in flux accommodating user needs as individuals interface with a changing world. However, we know surprisingly little about how language responds to market integration, a pressing force affecting indigenous communities worldwide today. While models of culture change often emphasize the replacement of one language, trait, or phenomenon with another following socioeconomic transitions, we present a more nuanced framework. We use demographic, economic, linguistic, and social network data from a rural Maya community that spans a 27-year period and the transition to market integration. By adopting this multivariate approach for the acquisition and use of languages, we find that while the number of bilingual speakers has significantly increased over time, bilingualism appears stable rather than transitionary. We provide evidence that when indigenous and majority languages provide complementary social and economic payoffs, both can be maintained. Our results predict the circumstances under which indigenous language use may be sustained or at risk. More broadly, the results point to the evolutionary dynamics that shaped the current distribution of the world's linguistic diversity.

A behavioural model of minority language shift: Theory and empirical evidence

Natural languages with their speech communities tend to compete for speakers, very much like firms compete for market shares. As a result, some languages suffer a shifting pressure which might lead them to their extinction. This work studies the dynamics of language shift in the context of modern bilingual societies like the Basque Country, Ireland and Wales. They all have two official languages, linguistically distant: A, spoken by all, and B, spoken by a bilingual minority. They also have a bilingual education system that ensures a steady flow of new bilinguals. However, a decay in the use of B is observed, signalling that shift processes are at work. To investigate this apparent paradox, we use a novel approach in the literature of language competition. We build a behavioural game model with which bilinguals choose either language A or B for each interaction. Thus, they play repeatedly the game. We present a theorem predicting that under reasonable assumptions, any given population of bilinguals will converge into a linguistic convention, namely into an evolutionary stable equilibrium of the game, that always embeds a proportion of bilinguals shifting to A. We validate this result by means of an empirical version of the model, showing that the predictions fit well the observed data of street use of Basque and daily use of Irish and Welsh.

Why multilingual, and how to keep it-An evolutionary dynamics perspective

While many languages are in danger of extinction worldwide, multilingualism is being adopted for communication among different language groups, and is playing a unique role in preserving language and cultural diversities. How multilingualism is developed and maintained therefore becomes an important interdisciplinary research subject for understanding complex social changes of modern-day societies. In this paper, a mixed population of multilingual speakers and bilingual speakers in particular is considered, with multilingual defined broadly as zero, limited, or full uses of multiple languages or dialects, and an evolutionary dynamic model for its development and evolution is proposed. The model consists of two different parts, formulated as two different evolutionary games, respectively. The first part accounts for the selection of languages based on the competition for population and social or economic preferences. The second part relates to circumstances when the selection of languages is altered, for better or worse, by forces other than competition such as public policies, education, or family influences. By combining competition with intervention, the paper shows how multilingualism may evolve under these two different sources of influences. It shows in particular that by choosing appropriate interventional strategies, the stable co-existence of languages, especially in multilingual forms, is possible, and extinction can be prevented. This is in contrast with major predictions from previous studies that the co-existence of languages is unstable in general, and one language will eventually dominate while all others will become extinct.

Language as a marker of ethnic identity among the Yucatec Maya

Most human variation is structured around symbolically marked cultural ('ethnic') groups that require common codes of communication. Consequently, many have hypothesised that using others' linguistic competences as markers of their descent is part of an evolved human psychology. However, there is also evidence that the use of language as ethnic markers is not universally applied, but context specific. We explore the tension between these views by studying responses to bilingualism among 121 adults living in Mayan communities undergoing rapid socioeconomic changes involving increased contact with Spanish-speaking towns. We show that, although competences in Mayan were strongly tied to perceiving others as having a Mayan ethnic identity, ethnolinguistic category membership was not seen as stable through life, vertically transmitted, nor regarded as incompatible with competences in Spanish. Moreover, we find variation in how people reasoned about ethnolinguistic identities depending on their own linguistic repertoires. Our work suggests that, while there may be an evolved predisposition to use language as a signal of group identity, our developmental plasticity allows us to respond adaptively to social information around us, leading to psychological and behavioural variation within and across populations. How people reason about others based on their linguistic profiles will affect the payoffs of acquiring different languages and ultimately the long-term sustainability of linguistic diversity.

Biased dispersal can explain fast human range expansions

Some human fronts spread faster than expected by models based on dispersal and reproduction. The only explanation proposed so far assumes that some autochthonous individuals are incorporated by the expanding populations, leading to faster front speeds. Here we show that simple models without this effect are also consistent with the observed speeds of two fronts (a Khoi-khoi expansion of herders and a Bantu expansion of farmers), provided that the dispersal of individuals is biased (i.e., more probable) in directions closer to the front propagation direction. The physical models presented may also be applied to other kinds of social phenomena, including innovation diffusion, rumor propagation, linguistic fronts, epidemic spread, diffusion in economic space and the evolution of cooperation in spatial systems. They can be also adapted to non-human systems with biased dispersal, including biological invasions, cancer tumors and virus treatment of tumors.

Quantifying the driving factors for language shift in a bilingual region

Many of the world's around 6,000 languages are in danger of disappearing as people give up use of a minority language in favor of the majority language in a process called language shift. Language shift can be monitored on a large scale through the use of mathematical models by way of differential equations, for example, reaction-diffusion equations. Here, we use a different approach: we propose a model for language dynamics based on the principles of cellular automata/agent-based modeling and combine it with very detailed empirical data. Our model makes it possible to follow language dynamics over space and time, whereas existing models based on differential equations average over space and consequently provide no information on local changes in language use. Additionally, cellular automata models can be used even in cases where models based on differential equations are not applicable, for example, in situations where one language has become dispersed and retreated to language islands. Using data from a bilingual region in Austria, we show that the most important factor in determining the spread and retreat of a language is the interaction with speakers of the same language. External factors like bilingual schools or parish language have only a minor influence.