Study of scaling laws in language families
This research addresses the problem of understanding the organization and distribution of major language families for linguists and anthropologists, but it is incremental as it builds on existing scaling law analyses.
The study analyzed scaling laws in language families using data from over 6,000 languages and found that the 14 largest families, excluding Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan, are distributed into three quadruplets with distinct Zipf graph exponents, revealing structural patterns in linguistic diversity.
This article investigates scaling laws within language families using data from over six thousand languages and analyzing emergent patterns observed in Zipf-like classification graphs. Both macroscopic (based on number of languages by family) and microscopic (based on numbers of speakers by language on a family) aspects of these classifications are examined. Particularly noteworthy is the discovery of a distinct division among the fourteen largest contemporary language families, excluding Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages. These families are found to be distributed across three language family quadruplets, each characterized by significantly different exponents in the Zipf graphs. This finding sheds light on the underlying structure and organization of major language families, revealing intriguing insights into the nature of linguistic diversity and distribution.