Age of various language families

[Mikael Parkvall]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear fellow histlingers,

As a result of reading some stuff by Bob "punctuated equilibrium" Dixon 
recently, I have been thinking about the relation between the age of a 
family and the number of languages it has split up into. Is there such a 
correlation in the first place, and if so, what does it look like?

So, I just tried to plot these values in a diagram, using the Ethnologue's 
numbers for "number of languages in the family" and suggested family ages 
that I found here and there in various books. I feel, however, that I'd 
like to expand the number of families, so I'm wondering if some of you 
could supply me with more such data.

Below are what I have found this far:
(please note that I am well aware that some families, like Na-Dene, are 
unlikely -- for the time being, I just noted everything I came across)

FAMILY   AGE   #LGS   SOURCE
Algonquian   3000   38   Dixon (1997:2).
Fennic   3500   29   Anttila (1972:301).
Mixte-Zoque   3600   16   Suárez (1983:28)
Mande   4000   68   Dalby (1988:448).
Mayan   4100   69   Suárez (1983:28)
Misumalpan   4300   4   Suárez (1983:28)
Eskimo-Aleut   4600   11   (or more) Krauss (1973a:850).
Fenno-Ugric   5000   32   Anttila (1972:301).
Austronesian   5000   1262   Dixon (1997:29).
Uto-Aztecan   5000   62   Mithun (1999:540)
Uto-Aztecan   5100   62   Suárez (1983:28)
Austronesian   6000   1262   Dalby (1998:47).
Uralic   6000   38   Dixon (1997:2), Anttila (1972:301).
Indo-European   6000   443   Dixon (1997:2).
Na-Dene   9000   47   Swadesh in Krauss (1973b:952-3).
Nilo-Saharan   10000   199   (or more) (Dalby 1988:453).
Niger-Congo   12000   1489   (not explicit) Dalby (1988:348)


Hopefully, some of you will be able to help me flesh this out a bit.


/MP

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mikael Parkvall
Institutionen för lingvistik
Stockholms Universitet
SE-10691 STOCKHOLM
(rum 276)

+46 (0)8 16 14 41, +46 (0)8 656 68 24 (hem)
Fax: +46 (0)8 15 53 89

parkvall at ling.su.se