The Rise and Fall of Languages

Bibliographic Data

ID23398223
AuthorsR M W Dixon (0000-0001-8294-5806, La Trobe University, corresponding author)
Year1997
Publication date1997-12-11
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueRise and Fall of Languages (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511612060
OpenAlexW2079164242
Open LibraryOL34475719M
ISBN9780511612060
LanguageEN
Citations received209
References cited2

This book puts forward a different approach to language change, the punctuated equilibrium model. This is based on the premise that during most of the 100,000 or more years that humans have had language, states of equilibrium have existed during which linguistic features diffused across the languages in a given area so that they gradually converged on a common prototype. From time to time, the state of equilibrium would be punctuated, with expansion and split of peoples and of languages, most recently, as a result of European colonisation and the globalisation of communication which are likely to result in the extinction, within the next hundred years, of 90% of the languages currently spoken. Professor Dixon suggests that every linguist should assume a responsibility for documenting some of these languages before they disappear.

Colonisation · Economics · Globalization · Linguistics · Market economy · Premise · Punctuated equilibrium · State (computer science) · Computer Science · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy