Publication
Title
Scaling relations for diversity of languages
Author
Abstract
The distribution of living languages is investigated and scaling relations are found for the diversity of languages as a function of the country area and population. These results are compared with data from Ecology and from computer simulations of fragmentation dynamics where similar scalings appear. The language size distribution is also studied and shown to display two scaling regions: (i) one for the largest tin population) languages and (ii) another one for intermediate-size languages. It is then argued that these two classes of languages may have distinct growth dynamics, being distributed on the sets of different fractal dimensions. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Physica: A : theoretical and statistical physics. - Amsterdam, 1975, currens
Publication
Amsterdam : North-Holland , 1999
ISSN
0378-4371 [print]
1873-2119 [online]
DOI
10.1016/S0378-4371(99)00249-6
Volume/pages
271 :3-4 (1999) , p. 489-495
ISI
000083029100018
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 03.01.2013
Last edited 29.12.2021
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