https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201922406009
Mathematical Models of the Distribution and Change of Linguistic Information in Language Communities: a Case of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Chinese Language Communities
Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), RU-117198, Moscow, Russian
* e-mail: Mey1@list.ru
Published online: 9 December 2019
The paper presents a theoretical analysis and computer simulations of the distribution and changes of the linguistic information in two model language communities: Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Chinese. Simulations show that out of two main hypotheses of the formation of the Proto-Indo-European languages, the Anatolian hypotheses and the Kurgan hypotheses, the latter is better consistent with the time estimates obtained in this study. The results obtained for Proto-Indo-European communities may also be used in the analysis of Asian language communities. In particular, the similarity of Chinese and Proto-Indo-European languages in terms of the relationship between the verb and the noun opens the possibility of applying our method to the analysis of the Proto-Sino-Tibetan language family. A possibility of creating a single national language Pŭtōnghuà (普通话) in the modern China was investigated. The results of the present study also suggest that the developed models look like a quite promising new instrument for studying linguistic information transfer in complex social and linguistic systems.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
