Physicists and mathematicians study the evolution of language based on changes in linguistic norms
Physicists and mathematicians study the evolution of language based on changes in linguistic norms
Physicists and mathematicians study the evolution of language based on changes in linguistic norms
A study published in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences (PNAS) analyzes the process of language evolution by observing 2,541 changes of linguistic norms that have taken place during the last two centuries in the Spanish and English languages.
The study was carried out by researchers from the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS) (Catalunya, Spain) Albert Díaz-Guilera and Roberta Amato, together with the researcher Andrea Baronchelli, professor at the City University of London, and Lucas Lacasa, from Queen Mary University in London.
"In this work we have identified different patterns of adoption of the linguistic norm depending on whether it is a spontaneous change or if it follows the changes proposed by an institution," explains Albert Díaz-Guilera, UBICS director. "On the other hand, we propose a simple mathematical model that reproduces all empirical observations and that allows us to improve our knowledge of the cultural evolution of language and collective behavior in response to certain proposals," he explains.
In 1815 the Spanish Royal Academy (RAE) introduced a rule by which certain words that were written with q happened to be written with c, as quadro-cuadro, quando-when or quotidiano-cotidiano. It has also analyzed the change introduced in 1884 by which some words happened to be accented (script-script) or double the r (virey-viceroy). "In these cases, the change is almost immediate, and from the same year you can see that what the RAE proposes is widely used", the researcher points out.
In the analysis of the data, the authors have identified three different behaviors depending on the origin of the change. The examples of the RAE fall within the first type, in which the norm is given by a formal institution.
The second is the case of an informal institution, such as the new dictionaries published in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. As explained by Roberta Amato, a UB PhD student and co-author of the study, in this case "millions of books digitized by Google were analyzed and examples were taken of the appearance of the spelling of North American English (for example, behaviour changes). a behavior, or analyze by analyze) ».
The last group corresponds to spontaneous processes that take place outside any institution and that arise when a number of users prefer the new convention instead of the old one. This is the case, for example, of the use of the two subjunctive forms in Spanish: oruviera or anduviese.
Another case analyzed, and which is still being discussed today, is the use or not of the accent in the adverb alone, for which until recently the diacritic tilde was accepted. In this case, a very recent RAE standard completely eliminates it, as can be seen in this file.
The time curves of each one of the cases studied make it possible to distinguish three different time scales. To carry out the study we used Google Ngram Corpora, a database that contains more than five million digitized texts thanks to the collaboration of thousands of libraries around the world, and also offers a barometer on the change of lexicon .
"The study has many implications," says Andrea Baronchelli, coordinator of the work. "Language is a huge field to check theories of change thanks to digitized texts, but the mechanisms we have identified also apply to other fields. Several groups, from governments to private organizations, try to influence conventional behaviors and beliefs, and we know that social networks are accelerating the process of changing collective behavior, "explains the expert. According to the researcher, understanding how social norms change, and what brands this change leaves in the data, will help us to better understand our society and to outline interventions aimed at contrasting unwanted effects. (Source: U. Barcelona)
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