Influence of geography on language competition

TL;DR

This paper investigates how geographical features and initial population distributions influence language competition outcomes, highlighting the importance of spatial factors over cultural transmission dynamics.

Contribution

It combines language competition and human dispersal models on inhomogeneous landscapes to analyze the impact of geography on language survival.

Findings

Geographical boundaries significantly affect language dominance.

Initial population distributions influence final language configurations.

Inhomogeneities in the landscape modulate diffusion and competition outcomes.

Abstract

Competition between languages or cultural traits diffusing in the same geographical area is studied combining the language competition model of Abrams and Strogatz and a human dispersal model on an inhomogeneous substrate. Also, the effect of population growth is discussed. It is shown through numerical experiments that the final configuration of the surviving language can be strongly affected by geographical and historical factors. These factors are not related to the dynamics of culture transmission, but rather to initial population distributions as well as geographical boundaries and inhomogeneities, which modulate the diffusion process.