Bounded fitness landscapes and the evolution of the linguistic diversity

We have recently introduced a simple spatial computer simulation model to study the evolution of the linguistic diversity. The model considers processes of selective geographic colonization, linguistic anomalous diffusion and mutation. In the approach, we ascribe to each language a fitness function...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysica A Vol. 368; no. 1; pp. 257 - 261
Main Authors de Oliveira, Viviane M., Campos, Paulo R.A., Gomes, M.A.F., Tsang, I.R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.08.2006
Subjects
Language competition
Languages
Linguistic diversity
Language competition
Linguistic diversity
Languages
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Summary:We have recently introduced a simple spatial computer simulation model to study the evolution of the linguistic diversity. The model considers processes of selective geographic colonization, linguistic anomalous diffusion and mutation. In the approach, we ascribe to each language a fitness function which depends on the number of people that speak that language. Here, we extend the aforementioned model to examine the role of saturation of the fitness on the language dynamics. We found that the dependence of the linguistic diversity on the area after colonization displays a power law regime with a nontrivial exponent in very good agreement with the measured exponent associated with the actual distribution of languages on the Earth.
ISSN:0378-4371
1873-2119
DOI:10.1016/j.physa.2005.11.058