SELF-SIMILARITY IN THE TAXONOMIC CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN LANGUAGES

Damián H. Zanette

14 citations0/0 files storedAdvances in Complex Systems

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Language and cultural evolution Linguistics and Language Studies Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis

Abstract

Statistical properties of the taxonomic classification of human languages are studied. It is shown that, at the highest levels of the taxonomic hierarchy, the frequency of taxon members as a function of the number of languages belonging to each member decays as a power law. This feature reveals that a self-similar structure underlies the taxonomy of languages, exactly as observed in the taxonomic classification of biological species. Such an analogy is a clue to the evolutionary foundation of language classification based on long-range comparison.

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1949Human behavior and the principle of least effort 1991Principles of Historical Linguistics 1989Language in the Americas 2023The Origin of Language

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2020Exploring the scaling law of geographical space: Gaussian versus Paretian thinking 2008DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE SIZES 2012Role of Demographic Dynamics and Conflict in the Population-Area Relationship for Human Languages 2008DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE SIZES

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