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<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">Dear Omri,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">I agree that statements like “n% of the world’s languages are x” are potentially misleading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">Not only for the non-independence reason you’ve mentioned, but also the fact that languages (lects) are not really countable,
but rather gradient variables.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">For example – How many Chinese languages are there? Well, according to Glottolog, it says 30 – but is “Wu Chinese” really
a language when the Wu branch itself consists of many distinct, non-intelligible varieties? Are there then 300 Chinese languages? Or 3000?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">So it’s not very helpful to start with the presupposition that there exist a certain fixed number of languages in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">Ian<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US">-</span></span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"><br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">朱 易安</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
JOO, IAN <br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">准教授</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
Associate Professor <br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">小樽商科大学</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
Otaru University of Commerce<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Apple Color Emoji";color:black;mso-fareast-language:#0C00">🌐</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"> <a href="http://ianjoo.github.io/"><span style="color:#714FBC">ianjoo.github.io</span></a><br>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:break-hangul"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:#0C00"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">보낸</span></b><b><span lang="KO" style="color:black">
</span></b><b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">사람</span></b><b><span style="color:black">:
</span></b><span style="color:black">Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">이</span><span style="color:black">(</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">가</span><span style="color:black">)
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">다음</span><span lang="KO" style="color:black">
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">사람</span><span lang="KO" style="color:black">
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">대신</span><span lang="KO" style="color:black">
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">보냄</span><span style="color:black">: Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
</span><b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">날짜</span></b><b><span style="color:black">:
</span></b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">화요일</span><span style="color:black">, 2025</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">년</span><span style="color:black"> 11</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">월</span><span style="color:black">
18</span><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">일</span><span style="color:black"> 18:25<br>
</span><b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">받는</span></b><b><span lang="KO" style="color:black">
</span></b><b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">사람</span></b><b><span style="color:black">:
</span></b><span style="color:black">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
</span><b><span lang="KO" style="font-family:"맑은 고딕",sans-serif;color:black">주제</span></b><b><span style="color:black">:
</span></b><span style="color:black">[Lingtyp] Reporting cross-linguistic frequencies<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Dear Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">I would like to raise the question of how cross-linguistic frequencies of typological features ought to be reported. The issue has been discussed extensively, but I still find some aspects conceptually confusing, so I hope this discussion
might be helpful for others as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">To make this concrete, consider the order of object and verb (OV, VO, no dominant order). Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have complete data for every language in Glottolog. This would give us the
<i>actual</i> proportion of languages that are OV vs. VO in the present-day world. The core problem, however, is that languages are not independent datapoints, so these actual frequencies also reflect genealogical and areal biases.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">For that reason, it is common practice to report <i>adjusted</i> frequencies instead, either through non-proportional stratified sampling (Dryer 2018) or through statistical bias controls (Becker & Guzmán Naranjo 2025). As far as I
understand, both methods aim to estimate something like: <i>If each language were independent (as if every language were an isolate and had no contact with its neighbors), what proportion would be OV vs. VO?</i> In other words, the population being described
is not the set of existing languages but a hypothetical (and unrealistic) set of independent languages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Now, suppose that the actual frequencies of OV and VO are equal, but the adjusted frequency of OV is higher. In that case, it feels counterintuitive to say that OV is more common cross-linguistically than VO. Perhaps it is clearer
to speak in terms of probabilities rather than proportions, given that the population is hypothetical. For instance, we might say:
<i>“When genealogical and areal biases are controlled for, the probability of a language being OV is 0.6".
</i>This means that the chance that a randomly sampled language isolate with no contact would be OV is 0.6. By contrast, saying “60% of the world’s languages are OV” when referring to an adjusted frequency seems potentially misleading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">I would appreciate hearing what others in the community think about how such statistics should ideally be reported.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Best regards,<br>
Omri<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">References:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Becker, Laura and Guzmán Naranjo Matías. 2025. Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology.
<i>Linguistic Typology</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:39.95pt;mso-para-margin-left:3.33gd"><span style="color:black">Dryer, Matthew S. 2018. On the order of demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun.
<i>Language</i> 94(4), 798-833.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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