Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss

TLDR

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. The study outlines the Grambank database and uses its comprehensiveness to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on linguistic structural diversity, evaluate constraints, and identify the most unusual languages. Grambank comprises over 400,000 data points across 2,400 languages, making it the largest comparative grammatical database. Analysis shows that language loss will unevenly reduce diversity across major regions, and without sustained documentation and revitalization, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

Abstract

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2,400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world's languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world's most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition and culture will be seriously fragmented.