17.09.2024 - Simon Greenhill

Humans are the cultural species. We speak more than 7000 languages and construct a dazzling diversity of cultures in which to live. Strikingly, this diversity is not evenly partitioned around the world. To date there has been a lot of work testing which parts of the planet have more languages and cultures than others and why. However, simply counting the numbers of languages is a poor representation of the true diversity we see around us. In this talk I will use 'functional diversity' methods from ecology to quantify linguistic and cultural diversity globally. I will pinpoint where, and in which groups, high functional diversity is found. I will then test whether the evolution of cultural and linguistic diversity is coupled or decoupled globally and regionally. Finally, I will discuss the rate of linguistic loss, and identify which features are most at risk.