"Humans collectively speak nearly 7,000 languages. But these languages are not spread evenly across
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| The computer model placed a population of people in one cell on the grid and then used a series of simple rules that defined how the population spread across the map. |
In a new study published in Global Ecology and Biogeography, the team was the first to use a form of simulation modeling to study the processes that shape language diversity patterns. Researchers tested the approach in Australia, and the model estimated 406 languages on the continent; the actual number of indigenous languages is 407.
But when the team tested this model in Australia, they found strong evidence that the amount of rainfall and limits to group size shaped both the total number of languages and the geographic patterns of language diversity on the continent.
"The results provide us with a better idea of the processes that may have shaped language diversity in Australia,..."
"In places that have similar environmental patterns and aspects of social organization, we'd predict that we would have a similar result," he said. "This may include parts of Africa, and parts of North America. But we wouldn't predict the same results everywhere. What we have now is a method that can be used to examine how different processes shaped the incredible cultural and linguistic diversity we see across the globe." Phys.org
*Interesting that as man spread out from Babel, with only a few languages, they became many but something as simple as rainfall could impact the diversity of it...similar as with plants and animals. Another reason God spread them out...to get more linguistic diversity among the several language families He gave them...
Therefore is the name of it called Babel;
because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth:
and from thence did the LORD scatter
them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:9