Abstract
Explaining the diversity of languages across the world is one of the central aims of typological, historical, and evolutionary linguistics. We consider the effect of language contact-the number of non-native speakers a language has-on the way languages change and evolve. By analysing hundreds of languages within and across language families, regions, and text types, we show that languages with greater levels of contact typically employ fewer word forms to encode the same information content (a property we refer to as lexical diversity). Based on three types of statistical analyses, we demonstrate that this variance can in part be explained by the impact of non-native speakers on information encoding strategies. Finally, we argue that languages are information encoding systems shaped by the varying needs of their speakers. Language evolution and change should be modeled as the co-evolution of multiple intertwined adaptive systems: On one hand, the structure of human societies and human learning capabilities, and on the other, the structure of language.
Highlights
To visually illustrate the range of values for all languages and all three LDT measures, we plot each language as a point in a three dimensional “lexical diversity space” along the dimensions of ZM’s α, Hw and type-token ratio (TTR)
Non-native language learning and usage emerges as important factor driving language change and evolution besides native language transmission
Since non-native language learners are prone to reduce manifold word forms to a smaller set of base forms, it is natural that they shape the lexical encoding strategies of the generation of learners
Summary
They differ greatly in terms of the encoding strategies they adopt. While in German a single compound can transmit complex concepts (e.g. Schifffahrtskapitänkabinenschlüssel), English uses whole phrases to transmit the same information (key to the cabin of the captain of a ship). In the Eskimo-Aleut language Inuktitut the word qimmiq ‘dog’ can be modified to encode different case relations, e,g. Many languages encode information about number, gender and case in a multitude of different articles, e.g. German der, die, das, dem, den, des or Italian il, la, lo, i, le, li, gli, whereas in English there is only one definite article the and in Mandarin Chinese there is none.
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