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Excellent point, Juergen. To add in my previous comment on the non-countability of language - There is no true "isolate" since all forms of language are infinitely divisible into multiple lects (be it dialects, sociolects, idiolects, or situolects). For example,
is Ainu a language isolate or a family called Ainuic? Same with Korean/Koreanic, Nivkh/Nivkhic, Basque/Basquic ...</div>
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From Otaru,</div>
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Ian</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>보낸 사람:</b> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> 님이 Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org> 님의 이름으로 보냄<br>
<b>보낸 날짜:</b> Friday, November 21, 2025 3:07:12 PM<br>
<b>받는 사람:</b> Matías Guzmán Naranjo <mguzmann89@gmail.com>; lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>제목:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Reporting cross-linguistic frequencies</font>
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Dear all — Here’s a quick explanation of why the assumption of an “isolated isolate” is profoundly strange: </div>
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<span style="font-size:12pt">Leaving aside sign languages, constructed languages, and artificial languages, nobody seems to entertain the possibility that languages have emerged spontaneously out of something that we wouldn’t consider a language itself over
the last few thousands of years. In other words, the languages we consider isolates are without exception lone survivors; but they did descend from ancestors which are often
</span><span style="font-size:16px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">lost and unknown</span><span style="font-size:12pt">, and these ancestors biased the offshoot's properties by dint of inheritance/transmission.</span></div>
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The reason isolates are interesting from a sampling perspective is that they may represent entire genera or families without forcing us to pick a member. But being an isolate does not mean being free of phylogenetic bias. On the contrary: isolates of unknown
descend are actually particularly problematic in the sense that they are shaped by biases that we have no way of identifying directly since the biasing ancestors have been lost to time.</div>
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<span style="font-size:12pt">As to contact. Languages that are not in contact with other languages over long stretches of time are extremely rare and unusual. In fact, as I’m sure everyone here is aware, such languages have been plausibly argued to tend to
evolve exotic properties as a result of their isolation (</span><span style="font-size:16px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Lupyan & Dale 2010;
</span><span style="font-size:12pt">Trudgill 2011), although this is controversial (Shcherbakova et al. 2023). In any case, I would certainly not want to make such languages the basis for causal inference in typology.</span></div>
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But it gets a lot worse. The “isolated isolate” interpretation doesn’t just require us to think of a language that isn’t currently in contact with any other language. We would have to assume a language that has
<b>never</b> come into contact with any other language at any point in its history (at least not long/intensively enough to change as a result of it). I’m seriously uncertain whether such a language has ever existed on this planet. </div>
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Here’s an analogy from quantum mechanics: Schrödinger’s and Heisenberg’s equations are mathematical models that describe the experimentally observed behavior of elementary particles under various conditions. The particle and the wave interpretation are interpretations
that we use to make sense of these mathematical models. We find these models useful because most of us don’t think in mathematical equations (not even theoretical physicists, it would seem). But if we push these interpretations beyond a certain point, they
break down. To begin with, we can’t think of something simultaneously as a wave and as a particle. </div>
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In the same way, we can mathematically describe the influence phylogeny and areality exert on the probability of a particular language having certain properties. The “isolated isolate” interpretation is just that - an interpretation of the statistical models;
but, as I tried to show above, it runs into absurdities rather more quickly than the particle and wave interpretations in quantum mechanics. </div>
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Best — Juergen</div>
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G. Lupyan, R. Dale, Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PLOS ONE5, e8559 (2010).</div>
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O. Shcherbakova, S. M. Michaelis, H. J. Haynie, et al. Societies of strangers do not speak less complex languages.
<i>Scientific Advances </i>9, eadf7704 (2023).</div>
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P. Trudgill, <i>Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity
</i>(OxfordUniv. Press, 2011).</div>
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<p style="margin:0in; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:black">Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:rgb(0,120,212)"><u><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" data-outlook-id="4d6fa45e-9b0a-42bb-a28f-16e0996f2dac" style="color:rgb(0,120,212); margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">jb77@buffalo.edu</a></u></span><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:black"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:rgb(5,99,193)"><u><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" data-outlook-id="8ba2b51b-80f8-43d0-9f78-c7115b9189fa" style="color:rgb(5,99,193); margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</a></u></span><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:black"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="color:black">Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:9pt; color:black"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span></p>
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<b>From: </b>Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Matías Guzmán Naranjo via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 04:01<br>
<b>To: </b>lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] Reporting cross-linguistic frequencies<br>
<br>
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<div class="x_PlainText" style="font-size:11pt">I'll jump in with some thoughts.<br>
<br>
<br>
- Dryer's method and ours aim at doing basically the same thing:<br>
quantifying what's "left" after removing genetic and areal bias.<br>
<br>
- Whether you should call them proportions or adjusted frequencies...<br>
I'm not sure that it matters that much? As long as you understand how<br>
they were calculated...<br>
<br>
- How you want to interpret this "what's left" is debatable, I guess,<br>
but I don't think I agree with Jürgen. As far as I can tell it should be<br>
compatible with something along the lines of an "isolated isolate" as<br>
described by Martin. You can also see them as 'universal' preferences<br>
(more or less the same thing?).<br>
<br>
- "the probability of a random language having a certain property<br>
depends on (or is influenced by, or varies with, etc.) it being related<br>
to certain other languages, or being spoken (or signed) in a particular<br>
area" -> In our approach we assumes that the probability of a language L<br>
having some feature value F depends on three things: 1) its relatedness<br>
to other languages, 2) its contact to other languages, 3) some universal<br>
preference for F. Kind of the point of what we do is that we try to<br>
estimate each of these factors. [We can add more factors and more<br>
structure, but that's the most basic model]<br>
<br>
- You can quantify the contribution of the phylogenetic component and<br>
the areal component(s) with our techniques, but this is a bit tricky<br>
because there is unavoidable overlap in the information each one<br>
contains. These measures also have a different meaning than the adjusted<br>
frequency and can't be used as a replacement for them, you can use them<br>
in addition to.<br>
<br>
<br>
Matías<br>
<br>
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El 20/11/25 a las 9:36, Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp escribió:<br>
> Dear all,<br>
> I agree with Ian that, in addition to genealogical and areal biases,<br>
> the very question of what counts as a language versus a dialect is<br>
> partly subjective. This makes actual frequencies even more<br>
> problematic, since we would obtain different results depending on<br>
> whether we treat Wu Chinese as one language or as thirty separate<br>
> languages, as Ian pointed out.<br>
> Juergen wrote: "We can empirically assess the extent to which the<br>
> probability of a random language having a certain property depends on<br>
> (or is influenced by, or varies with, etc.) it being related to<br>
> certain other languages, or being spoken (or signed) in a particular<br>
> area."<br>
><br>
> I wonder whether it might be useful to have a measure of the<br>
> genealogical and areal spread of a feature, essentially quantifying<br>
> how broadly it is distributed across families and regions in the<br>
> present-day world. Such a measure might be more straightforward to<br>
> interpret than an adjusted frequency/probability, since it is not<br>
> clear whether the described population is a hypothetical set of<br>
> isolated isolates or something else.<br>
><br>
> Is anyone aware of an existing metric that captures genealogical or<br>
> areal spread in this way?<br>
><br>
> Best,<br>
> Omri<br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
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