Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries.

Matjaž Perc

doi:10.1098/rsif.2012.0491

Abstract

By determining the most common English words and phrases since the beginning of the sixteenth century, we obtain a unique large-scale view of the evolution of written text. We find that the most common words and phrases in any given year had a much shorter popularity lifespan in the sixteenth century than they had in the twentieth century. By measuring how their usage propagated across the years, we show that for the past two centuries, the process has been governed by linear preferential attachment. Along with the steady growth of the English lexicon, this provides an empirical explanation for the ubiquity of Zipf's law in language statistics and confirms that writing, although undoubtedly an expression of art and skill, is not immune to the same influences of self-organization that are known to regulate processes as diverse as the making of new friends and World Wide Web growth.

Highlights

The evolution of language [1 – 7] is, much like the evolution of cooperation [8,9], something that markedly distinguishes humans from other species [10,11]
From human mobility patterns [21,22], crashes in financial markets [23] and in our economic life [24,25], the spread of infectious diseases [26,27,28] and malware [29,30], the dynamics of online popularity [31] and social movements [32], to scientific correspondence [33,34], there appear to be no limits to insightful explorations that lift the veil on how we as humans behave, interact, communicate and shape our very existence
Regardless of whether a word is an adjective or a noun, or whether it is currently trendy or not, with the years passing by the mechanism of preferential attachment will make sure that the word will obtain its rightful place in the overall rankings

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The evolution of language [1 – 7] is, much like the evolution of cooperation [8,9], something that markedly distinguishes humans from other species [10,11]. While the successful evolution of cooperation enables us to harvest the benefits of collective efforts on an unprecedented scale, the evolution of language, along with the set of grammatical rules [12] that allows infinitely many comprehensible formulations [13,14,15,16], enables us to uphold a cumulative culture [17] Were it not for books, periodicals and other publications, we would hardly be able to continuously elaborate over what is handed over by previous generations, and, the diversity and efficiency of our products would be much lower than it is today. Fundamental laws of organization that determine so many other aspects of our existence

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

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