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Why do Human Beings Speak so Many Languages?

posted by martyb on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the Not-Enough-Babel-Fish dept.

AnonTechie writes:

People don't speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over 7,000 distinct languages.

And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, far more languages are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu's 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.

Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.

[...] Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434

Would you people care to speculate as to why there are so many languages ?

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  • (Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:04AM (3 children)

    by gman003 (4155) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:04AM (#540698)

    Only one type of American? I speak fluent Southern Redneck, Midwest and Yankee, passable West Coaster, and a heavily-accented AAVE (took me forever to get the hang of the verbs). Plus Londoner and Canucki.

    And Church Latin, but that's a whole different story.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:37AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:37AM (#540710)

    It's an emergency! Does anybody here speak Jive?!

    • (Score: 2) by Webweasel on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:41PM

      by Webweasel (567) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:41PM (#540920) Homepage Journal

      You jive turkey. See? You got to sass it. Quit jivin' me, turkey. You got to sass it. A "turkey" is a bad person.

      --
      Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956

    • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:22PM

      by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:22PM (#540964) Journal

      And how would someone learn Jive anyway? Is Hooked on Ebonics any good?