Birth, survival and death of languages by Monte Carlo simulation

TL;DR

This paper reviews Monte Carlo simulation studies on language competition, diversity, and decay, including new simulations of bilinguality, to understand language dynamics and distribution patterns.

Contribution

It introduces new Monte Carlo simulations of bilinguality and analyzes language decay and distribution, expanding on prior models of language competition.

Findings

Languages decay with geographical distance

Natural boundaries influence language distribution

Bilinguality simulations reveal complex language interactions

Abstract

Simulations of physicists for the competition between adult languages since 2003 are reviewed. How many languages are spoken by how many people? How many languages are contained in various language families? How do language similarities decay with geographical distance, and what effects do natural boundaries have? New simulations of bilinguality are given in an appendix.