Language simulation after a conquest

TL;DR

This paper models language shift dynamics after conquest using the Schulze model, showing how network topology influences the speed of language dominance, with faster convergence on scale-free networks and divergence on lattices.

Contribution

It introduces a network-based simulation of language change post-conquest, highlighting the impact of network structure on language dominance times.

Findings

Faster language dominance on directed Barabasi-Albert networks.

Divergence of convergence time on square lattice at critical s.

Approximate 2/s time scale for language dominance on scale-free networks.

Abstract

When a region is conquered by people speaking another language, we assume within the Schulze model that at each iteration each person with probability s shifts to the conquering language. The time needed for the conquering language to become dominating is about 2/s for directed Barabasi-Albert networks, but diverges on the square lattice for decreasing s at some critical value sc