Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts Export

@article{citeulike:2316678, abstract = {Linguists speculate that human languages often evolve in rapid or punctuational bursts, sometimes associated with their emergence from other languages, but this phenomenon has never been demonstrated. We used vocabulary data from three of the world's major language groups--Bantu, Indo-European, and Austronesian--to show that 10 to 33\% of the overall vocabulary differences among these languages arose from rapid bursts of change associated with language-splitting events. Our findings identify a general tendency for increased rates of linguistic evolution in fledgling languages, perhaps arising from a linguistic founder effect or a desire to establish a distinct social identity. 10.1126/science.1149683}, author = {Atkinson, Quentin D. and Meade, Andrew and Venditti, Chris and Greenhill, Simon J. and Pagel, Mark}, citeulike-article-id = {2316678}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1149683}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5863/588.abstract}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5863/588.full.pdf}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5863/588}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/atkinson08evolveBursts.html}, citeulike-linkout-5 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18239118}, citeulike-linkout-6 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=18239118}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1126/science.1149683}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {evolution, language\_evolution}, month = {February}, number = {5863}, pages = {588+}, posted-at = {2009-10-10 21:38:03}, priority = {2}, title = {Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1149683}, volume = {319}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2316678 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2316678 N2 - Linguists speculate that human languages often evolve in rapid or punctuational bursts, sometimes associated with their emergence from other languages, but this phenomenon has never been demonstrated. We used vocabulary data from three of the world's major language groups--Bantu, Indo-European, and Austronesian--to show that 10 to 33% of the overall vocabulary differences among these languages arose from rapid bursts of change associated with language-splitting events. Our findings identify a general tendency for increased rates of linguistic evolution in fledgling languages, perhaps arising from a linguistic founder effect or a desire to establish a distinct social identity. 10.1126/science.1149683 IS - 5863 JF - Science TI - Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts VL - 319 SP - 588 KW - evolution KW - language_evolution AU - Atkinson, Quentin AU - Meade, Andrew AU - Venditti, Chris AU - Greenhill, Simon AU - Pagel, Mark PY - 2008/02/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1149683 ER -