Using a bit-string model similar to biological simulations, the competition between different languages is simulated both without and with spatial structure. We compare our agent-based work with differential equations and the competing bit-string model of Kosmidis et al.
In this work we study a modified version of the two-dimensional Sznajd sociophysics model. In particular, we consider the effects of agents' reputations in the persuasion rules. In other words, a high-reputation group with a common opinion may convince their neighbors with probability $p$, which induces an increase of the group's reputation. On the other hand, there is always a probability $q=1-p$ of the neighbors to keep their opinions, which induces a decrease of the group's reputation. These rules describe a competition between groups with high reputation and hesitant agents, which makes th…
Using the Schulze model for Monte Carlo simulations of language competition, we include a barrier between the top half and the bottom half of the lattice. We check under which conditions two different languages evolve as dominating in the two halves.
Competition between languages or cultural traits diffusing in the same geographical area is studied combining the language competition model of Abrams and Strogatz and a human dispersal model on an inhomogeneous substrate. Also, the effect of population growth is discussed. It is shown through numerical experiments that the final configuration of the surviving language can be strongly affected by geographical and historical factors. These factors are not related to the dynamics of culture transmission, but rather to initial population distributions as well as geographical boundaries and inhomo…
Computer simulation of languages is an old subject, but since the paper of Abrams and Strogatz (2003) several physics groups independently took up this field. We shortly review their work and bring more details on our own simulations.
Recently, individual-based models originally used for biological purposes revealed interesting insights into processes of the competition of languages. Within this new field of population dynamics a model considering sexual populations with ageing is presented. The agents are situated on a lattice and each one speaks one of two languages or both. The stability and quantitative structure of an interface between two regions, initially speaking different languages, is studied. We find that individuals speaking both languages do not prefer any of these regions and have a different age structure th…
The language competition model of Viviane de Oliveira et al is modified by associating with each language a string of 32 bits. Whenever a language changes in this Viviane model, also one randomly selected bit is flipped. If then only languages with different bit-strings are counted as different, the resulting size distribution of languages agrees with the empirically observed slightly asymmetric log-normal distribution. Several other modifications were also tried but either had more free parameters or agreed less well with reality.
The bit-string model of Schulze and Stauffer (2005) is applied to non-equilibrium situations and then gives better agreement with the empirical distribution of language sizes. Here the size is the number of people having this language as mother tongue. In contrast, when equilibrium is combined with irreversible mutations of languages, one language always dominates and is spoken by at least 80 percent of the population.
The similarity of the evolution of human languages (or alphabets, bird songs, >...) to biological evolution of species is utilized to study with up to $10^9$ people the rise and fall of languages either by macroscopic differential equations similar to biological Lotka-Volterra equation, or by microscopic Monte Carlo simulations of bit-strings incorporating the birth, maturity, and death of every individual. For our bit-string model, depending on parameters either one language comprises the majority of speakers (dominance), or the population splits into many languages having in order of magnitu…
We consider the spreading and competition of languages that are spoken by a population of individuals. The individuals can change their mother tongue during their lifespan, pass on their language to their offspring and finally die. The languages are described by bitstrings, their mutual difference is expressed in terms of their Hamming distance. Language evolution is determined by mutation and adaptation rates. In particular we consider the case where the replacement of a language by another one is determined by their mutual Hamming distance. As a function of the mutation rate we find a sharp …
Following Abrams and Strogatz 2003 and Patriarca and Leppanen 2004, five other physics groups independently started to simulate the competition of languages, as opposed to the evolution of a human language out of ape sounds, or the learning of a language by a child. This talk concentrates on the models of Christian Schulze et al and of Viviane de Oliveira et al which allow the simulation of a large number of languages, similar to today's 8,000 human languages. The first model deals with a continuous process of random mutations of a language, transfer from and to other languages, and flight awa…
We consider a modification of the voter model in which a set of interacting elements (agents) can be in either of two equivalent states (A or B) or in a third additional mixed AB state. The model is motivated by studies of language competition dynamics, where the AB state is associated with bilingualism. We study the ordering process and associated interface and coarsening dynamics in regular lattices and small world networks. Agents in the AB state define the interfaces, changing the interfacial noise driven coarsening of the voter model to curvature driven coarsening. We argue that this chan…
Time evolutions of number of cities, population of cities, world population, and size distribution of present languages are studied in terms of a new model, where population of each city increases by a random rate and decreases by a random division. World population and size distribution of languages come out in good agreement with the available empirical data.
Influencing various aspects of human activity, migration is associated also with language formation. To examine the mutual interaction of these processes, we study a Naming Game with migrating agents. The dynamics of the model leads to formation of low-mobility clusters, which turns out to break the symmetry of the model: although the Naming Game remains symmetric, low-mobility languages are favoured. High-mobility languages are gradually eliminated from the system and the dynamics of language formation considerably slows down. Our model is too simple to explain in detail language competition …
We investigate the dynamics of two agent based models of language competition. In the first model, each individual can be in one of two possible states, either using language $X$ or language $Y$, while the second model incorporates a third state XY, representing individuals that use both languages (bilinguals). We analyze the models on complex networks and two-dimensional square lattices by analytical and numerical methods, and show that they exhibit a transition from one-language dominance to language coexistence. We find that the coexistence of languages is more difficult to maintain in the …
During the last decade, much attention has been paid to language competition in the complex systems community, that is, how the fractions of speakers of several competing languages evolve in time. In this paper we review recent advances in this direction and focus on three aspects. First we consider the shift from two-state models to three state models that include the possibility of bilingual individuals. The understanding of the role played by bilingualism is essential in sociolinguistics. In particular, the question addressed is whether bilingualism facilitates the coexistence of languages.…
Recent computer simulations of the competition between thousands of languages are reviewed, and some new results on language families and language similarities are presented.
We extend the Abrams-Strogatz model for competition between two languages [Nature 424, 900 (2003)] to the case of n(>=2) competing states (i.e., languages). Although the Abrams-Strogatz model for n=2 can be interpreted as modeling either majority preference or minority aversion, the two mechanisms are distinct when n>=3. We find that the condition for the coexistence of different states is independent of n under the pure majority preference, whereas it depends on n under the pure minority aversion. We also show that the stable coexistence equilibrium and stable monopoly equilibria can be multi…
Simulations of physicists for the competition between adult languages since 2003 are reviewed. How many languages are spoken by how many people? How many languages are contained in various language families? How do language similarities decay with geographical distance, and what effects do natural boundaries have? New simulations of bilinguality are given in an appendix.
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela(圣地亚哥-德孔波斯特拉大学);ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra(庞培法布拉大学ICREA复杂系统实验室);Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, UPF-CSIC(UPF-CSIC进化生物学研究所);King Abdulaziz University(阿卜杜勒阿齐兹国王大学)
An in-depth analytic study of a model of language dynamics is presented: a model which tackles the problem of the coexistence of two languages within a closed community of speakers taking into account bilingualism and incorporating a parameter to measure the distance between languages. After previous numerical simulations, the model yielded that coexistence might lead to survival of both languages within monolingual speakers along with a bilingual community or to extinction of the weakest tongue depending on different parameters. In this paper, such study is closed with thorough analytical cal…
The understanding of language competition helps us to predict extinction and survival of languages spoken by minorities. A simple agent-based model of a sexual population, based on the Penna model, is built in order to find out under which circumstances one language dominates other ones. This model considers that only young people learn foreign languages. The simulations show a first order phase transition where the ratio between the number of speakers of different languages is the order parameter and the mutation rate is the control one.
This paper presents Monte Carlo simulations of language populations and the development of language families, showing how a simple model can lead to distributions similar to the ones observed empirically. The model used combines features of two models used in earlier work by phycisists for the simulation of competition among languages: the "Viviane" model for the migration of people and propagation of languages and the "Schulze" model, which uses bitstrings as a way of characterising structural features of languages.
Inspired by language competition processes, we present a model of coupled evolution of node and link states. In particular, we focus on the interplay between the use of a language and the preference or attitude of the speakers towards it, which we model, respectively, as a property of the interactions between speakers (a link state) and as a property of the speakers themselves (a node state). Furthermore, we restrict our attention to the case of two socially equivalent languages and to socially inspired network topologies based on a mechanism of triadic closure. As opposed to most of the previ…
Learning thresholds lead to stable language coexistence
School of Digital Technologies, Tallinn University(数字技术学院,塔林大学);National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics(化学物理与生物物理国家研究所);Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma(罗马生物医学大学)