[Lingtyp] Diversity/dispersion of descriptive/typological knowledge by language

Bohnemeyer, Juergen jb77 at buffalo.edu
Fri Jan 3 18:09:19 UTC 2020


Dear all — I was wondering whether anybody has attempted to quantify the extent of linguistic diversity in our knowledge of the languages of the world. I believe mathematically speaking the type of information I’m looking for is a frequency distribution. The question is to what extent are a handful of languages and language families overrepresented in our knowledge of the languages of the world whereas the vast majority of languages and language families are underrepresented. One can ask this question (i) about our descriptive knowledge of any and all languages and (ii) specifically about the typological literature. I’m most interested in (ii), but I’m guessing there’s more likely to be an answer to (i) (though I also realize that the odds of anybody having proposed an answer to either question without me having heard of it are not great). Anybody aware of such a study? Even relevant claims without empirical footing would be of interest. — Best — Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies 
Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science 
University at Buffalo 

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus * Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 
Phone: (716) 645 0127 
Fax: (716) 645 3825 * Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu * Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/ 

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm


There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In (Leonard Cohen)



More information about the Lingtyp mailing list