A serial founder effect model of phonemic diversity based on phonemic loss in low-density populations.

ABSTRACT: It has been observed that the number of phonemes in languages in use today tends to decrease with increasing distance from Africa. A previous formal model has recently reproduced the observed cline, but under two strong assumptions. Here we tackle the question of whether an alternative explanation for the worldwide phonemic cline is possible, by using alternative assumptions. The answer is affirmative. We show this by formalizing a proposal, following Atkinson, that this pattern may be due to a repeated bottleneck effect and phonemic loss. In our simulations, low-density populations lose phonemes during the Out-of-Africa dispersal of modern humans. Our results reproduce the observed global cline for the number of phonemes. In addition, we also detect a cline of phonemic diversity and repro

SUBMITTER: Perez-Losada J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5983421 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature