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Cited by 251Language and cultural evolutionLinguistics and language evolutionLinguistic and Sociocultural Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

Linguistic Diversity

Nettle, Daniel·1999
DOI 10.1093/oso/9780198238584.001.0001
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Abstract

There are some 6,500 different languages in the world, belonging to around 250 distinct families and conforming to numerous grammatical types. This book explains why. Given that the biological mechanisms underlying language are the same in all normal human beings, would we not be a more successful species if we spoke one language? Daniel Nettle considers how this extraordinary and rich diversity arose, how it relates to the nature of language, cognition, and culture, and how it is linked with the main patterns of human geography and history. Human languages and language families are not distributed evenly: there are relatively few in Eurasia compared to the profusion found in Australasia, the Pacific, and the Americas. There is also a marked correlation between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. The author explains the processes by which this distribution evolved and changes still. To do so he returns to the earliest origins of language, reconstructing the processes of linguistic variation and diffusion that occurred when humans first filled the continents and, thousands of years later, turned to agriculture. He ends by examining the causes of linguistic mortality, and why the number of the world's languages may halve before 2100. Linguistic Diversity draws on work in anthropology, linguistics, geography, archaeology, and evolutionary science to provide a comprehensive account of the patterns of linguistic diversity. It is written in a clear, lively and accessible style, and will appeal broadly across the natural and human sciences, as well as to the informed general reader.

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Metadata

Authors
Nettle, D.
Corresponding author
Nettle, Daniel
ORCID
Nettle, Daniel
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
Published
1999-05-06
DOI
10.1093/oso/9780198238584.001.0001
OpenAlex
W4388155107
Cited by
251
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 15
FWCI
32.78
Type
book
Language
en
Open access
closed
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and language evolution
  • Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies
Keywords
linguistic diversity, language families, language distribution, origin of language, language spread, language variation, endangered languages, language death, language and cognition, language and culture, human geography

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