When we explore the greatest factors influencing biodiversity, we often see factors like ecological niches, geographical barriers to migration, and various ecological and environmental factors come to mind. As researchers prescribe ecological means to explain linguistic diversity, drawing the parallels biodiversity shares with linguistic diversity, similar theories to linguistic diversification also arise. Mountains and large … Continue reading What is the Ecological Risk Hypothesis?
language diversity
How do we measure linguistic diversity?
Earth is a diverse place, with millions of species, and thousands of languages. Yet, when we think about diversity, our minds gravitate towards biodiversity, or the variety of life (usually plant and animal) in a particular area. But the same applies to linguistic diversity, or the diversity of languages in a particular area. On The … Continue reading How do we measure linguistic diversity?
The Languages of North America
When this topic pops into mind, our first instinct may be to gravitate towards English, French, and Spanish, the dominant languages in this region. French and English are spoken in Canada, English and Spanish are spoken in the United States, and Spanish is spoken in Mexico (North America largely includes only the Northern Mexican states, … Continue reading The Languages of North America
Language and Ecology — Island Biogeography of Languages
As someone who has a background in ecology and many things biology, there are often many times I have tried to observe parallels between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. In fact, I have written a couple of posts before about these topics, breaking down published academic or scientific papers that explore these concepts. We see that … Continue reading Language and Ecology — Island Biogeography of Languages
The Language Closet 