Atkinson Quentin D, Meade Andrew, Venditti Chris, Greenhill Simon J, Pagel Mark
School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AS, UK.
Science. 2008 Feb 1;319(5863):588. doi: 10.1126/science.1149683.
Linguists speculate that human languages often evolve in rapid or punctuational bursts, sometimes associated with their emergence from other languages, but this phenomenon has never been demonstrated. We used vocabulary data from three of the world's major language groups-Bantu, Indo-European, and Austronesian-to show that 10 to 33% of the overall vocabulary differences among these languages arose from rapid bursts of change associated with language-splitting events. Our findings identify a general tendency for increased rates of linguistic evolution in fledgling languages, perhaps arising from a linguistic founder effect or a desire to establish a distinct social identity.
语言学家推测，人类语言常常以快速或突变的方式演变，有时与它们从其他语言中分化出来有关，但这一现象从未得到证实。我们利用来自世界三大主要语系——班图语系、印欧语系和南岛语系——的词汇数据表明，这些语言之间总体词汇差异的10%至33%源于与语言分裂事件相关的快速变化。我们的研究结果确定了新兴语言中语言演变速度加快的普遍趋势，这可能源于语言奠基者效应或建立独特社会身份的愿望。
