Evolution toward linguistic coherence in naming game with migrating agents

TL;DR

This study investigates how migration affects language formation in a naming game model, revealing that migration can lead to surface-tension-driven coarsening or the emergence of monolingual islands depending on migration patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a model analyzing the impact of migration on language dynamics, highlighting different outcomes based on migration types and rates.

Findings

Migration induces surface-tension-driven coarsening in all-agent migration scenarios.

Selective migration of multilingual agents leads to monolingual island formation.

High migration rates among multilingual agents promote the emergence of a common language.

Abstract

As an integral part of our culture and way of life, language is intricately related to migrations of people. To understand whether and how migration shapes language formation processes we examine the dynamics of the naming game with migrating agents. (i) When all agents may migrate, the dynamics generates an effective surface tension, which drives the coarsening. Such a behaviour is very robust and appears for a wide range of densities of agents and their migration rates. (ii) However, when only multilingual agents are allowed to migrate, monolingual islands are typically formed. In such a case, when the migration rate is sufficiently large, the majority of agents acquire a common language, which spontaneously emerges with no indication of the surface-tension driven coarsening. A relatively slow coarsening that takes place in a dense static population is very fragile, and most likely, an arbitrarily small migration rate can divert the system toward quick formation of monolingual islands. Our work shows that migration influences language formation processes but additional details like density, or mobility of agents are needed to specify more precisely this influence.