The network nature of language endangerment hotspots.

ABSTRACT: Language endangerment is one of the most urgent issues of the twenty-first century. Languages are disappearing at unprecedented rates, with dire consequences that affect speaker communities, scientific community and humanity. There is impetus for understanding the nature of language endangerment, and we investigate where language endangerment occurs by performing network analysis on 3423 languages at various levels of risk. Macro-level analysis shows evidence of positive assortative mixing of endangerment statuses-critically endangered languages are surrounded by similarly endangered languages, indicating the prevalence of linguistic hotspots throughout the world. Meso-level analysis using community detection returned 13 communities experiencing different levels of threat. Micro-level anal

SUBMITTER: Lee NH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9232642 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature