Diffusion and inheritance of language and culture: A comparative perspective

Holman, E.W.; Wichmann, Søren; Brown, C.H.; Anthon, Eff

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Diffusion and inheritance of language and culture: A comparative perspective

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Wichmann, Søren
Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Holman, E., Wichmann, S., Brown, C., & Anthon, E. (2015). Diffusion and inheritance of language and culture: A comparative perspective. Social Evolution and History, 14(1), 49-64.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002C-10FD-B

Abstract

Using three worldwide databases, we investigate how average similarity between pairs of languages and cultures are influenced by geographic distance and time of common ancestry. Generally, the similarity between languages or cultures decreases as the geographic distance increases. This occurs even for languages and cultures without a known common ancestor, suggesting the influence of diffusion. At any given distance, related languages are more similar than unrelated languages. However, remotely related cultures are no more similar than entirely unrelated ones, indicating that inherited cultural features tend to be lost more readily over time than inherited linguistic features. © 2015 'Uchitel' Publishing House.