The role of zealots in the spread of linguistic traits

TL;DR

This paper explores how zealots influence the spread and diversity of linguistic traits in a population using an agent-based model inspired by Axelrod's framework, highlighting factors that lead to linguistic diversity.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Axelrod model incorporating zealots that spread innovations without influence from others, analyzing their impact on linguistic diversity.

Findings

Zealots significantly affect linguistic diversity and community formation.

The model's results align with mean-field approximation predictions.

Higher zealot influence increases the likelihood of multi-linguistic communities.

Abstract

We investigate the diffusion of linguistic innovations on a fully connected network in order to understand the emergence of linguistic diversity. We employ an agent-based dynamics based on the Axelrod model, where interactions between agents are driven by homophily and social influence, with the difference that we assume that all agents share a number of common features that ensure a finite probability of pairwise interaction. We start from a homogeneous population and introduce zealots that act like agents spreading linguistic innovations, without being influenced by other agents. We analyze how different factors, such as the degree of cohesion and number of zealots in different linguistic states, determine the linguistic configurations that populations can adopt and contribute to the possible emergence of a multi-linguistic community. The results are compared with those derived within the mean-field approximation.