Are the World’s Languages Consolidating? The Dynamics and Distribution of Language Populations
研究发现，除极小语种外，语言规模与增长不相关；模型拟合了大规模语种的幂律分布，并预测40%的极小语种将在百年内消亡。
Scholars have conjectured that the return to speaking a language increases with the number of speakers. Long‐run economic and political integration would accentuate this advantage, increasing the population share of the largest languages. I show that, to the contrary, language size and growth are uncorrelated except for very small languages (< 35,000 speakers). I develop a model of local language coordination over a network. The steady‐state distribution of language sizes follows a power law and precisely fits the empirical size distribution of languages with ≥ 35,000 speakers. Simulations suggest the extinction of 40% of languages with < 35,000 speakers within 100 years.