Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Radboud University, Comeniuslaan 4, 6525 HP Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Proc Biol Sci. 2019 Jul 24;286(1907):20191262. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1262. Epub 2019 Jul 17.
Understanding worldwide patterns of language diversity has long been a goal for evolutionary scientists, linguists and philosophers. Research over the past decade has suggested that linguistic diversity may result from differences in the social environments in which languages evolve. Specifically, recent work found that languages spoken in larger communities typically have more systematic grammatical structures. However, in the real world, community size is confounded with other social factors such as network structure and the number of second languages learners in the community, and it is often assumed that linguistic simplification is driven by these factors instead. Here, we show that in contrast to previous assumptions, community size has a unique and important influence on linguistic structure. We experimentally examine the live formation of new languages created in the laboratory by small and larger groups, and find that larger groups of interacting participants develop more systematic languages over time, and do so faster and more consistently than small groups. Small groups also vary more in their linguistic behaviours, suggesting that small communities are more vulnerable to drift. These results show that community size predicts patterns of language diversity, and suggest that an increase in community size might have contributed to language evolution.
长期以来，了解世界范围内语言多样性的模式一直是进化科学家、语言学家和哲学家的目标。过去十年的研究表明，语言多样性可能是由于语言进化的社会环境的差异造成的。具体来说，最近的研究发现，在更大的社区中使用的语言通常具有更系统的语法结构。然而，在现实世界中，社区规模与其他社会因素（如网络结构和社区中的第二语言学习者数量）混淆在一起，人们通常认为语言简化是由这些因素驱动的。在这里，我们表明，与之前的假设相反，社区规模对语言结构有着独特而重要的影响。我们通过实验组的方式，在实验室中对由小团体和大团体创造的新语言的实时形成进行了实验研究，结果发现，随着时间的推移，较大的互动参与者群体发展出了更系统的语言，而且速度更快、更一致，而较小的群体则变化更多。这表明小社区更容易受到漂移的影响。这些结果表明，社区规模可以预测语言多样性的模式，并表明社区规模的增加可能促成了语言的进化。
