Evolution of language driven by social dynamics

TL;DR

This paper models how social dynamics, specifically mutual honour, influence the survival or extinction of endangered languages, revealing critical thresholds that promote coexistence.

Contribution

It introduces a socio-cultural model showing how mutual honour affects language competition and identifies a critical honour level for language coexistence.

Findings

A minimal mutual honour (a=0.9635) prevents language extinction.

Increasing mutual honour boosts speaker populations.

Biased honour leads to language extinction.

Abstract

The survival of endangered languages in complex language competition depends on socio-cultural status and honour endowed (by itself and by the other) among them. The restriction in the endorsement of this honour leads to language extinction of one language, and rise of the other. Endorsing proper mutual honour each other trigger the co-existence of language speakers and can save both languages from extinction. The lost of respect to each other drives the death of both languages. We found a minimal or critical mutual honour (a=0.9635) which protects the two languages from extinction. The increase in mutual honour from this minimal value allows increase in the populations of the two languages speakers. The state of co-existence of competing languages abolishes the concept of minority and majority in language competition which can be obtained by mutual honour. Further, excess biased honour to a particular language (minority or majority) force the language to extinct. In mean-field approximation of language competition, magnetization parameter can be taken as an indicator of survival of a language.