You've probably heard the oft-cited statistic that language dies every 40 days. A study published earlier this month aims to shed light on what this decline in linguistic diversity means for the study of linguistics and human cognition.
The study, published April 19 in the journal
Science Advances, details the creation of
Grambank, a grammar database of more than 2,400 languages and dialects. The researchers then used it to answer several questions about the nature of linguistic diversity, such as constraints on the evolution of certain grammatical features and the consequences of diminished linguistic diversity.
"Grambank shows us the importance of working on language documentation and reenactment to preserve this legacy of human communication, culture, and cognition," Hannah Haynie, one of the study's co-authors, said in a press release.
"We are currently in a critical situation in terms of language danger."
The researchers who conducted the study collected data on the grammatical features of 2,467 languages and dialects (or 2,430 unique languages). When creating the database, the researchers flagged 195 different grammatical features, such as grammatical gender, definite and indefinite articles, and noun duplication.
Analysis of these features was used to determine what constraints there are on grammatical features that can evolve in a language. This analysis found that linguistic evolution is not strictly constrained, but much more constrained than, for example, genetic evolution.
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