How is the evolution of language shaped by speaker population size? Through comparative data analyses of 153 language pairs from the Austronesian, Indo-European, and Niger-Congo language families, the authors find that the influence of population size on language evolution is not the same in the three language families. Only in Indo-European languages did a smaller population size of language-speakers significantly predict more word loss.

This study found that the more language speakers there are, the more phonemes in the language. In addition, the more language speakers, the more vowels and consonants. While some language families have more phonemes than others, this did not affect the results. The goal of this paper was only to illustrate a link between the two and the authors hope this work encourages further examination into this relationship.

It has long been understood that gendered languages favor a male-female dichotomy and that language may subconsciously influence symbolic interactions and larger cultural patterns. This cross-cultural study examines gender in language with the individual's perception of aspects of gender equality, claiming that a linguistic approach is necessary for conceptualizing gender views in a global context. While most measures of gender ideology showed no statistically significant relationships with genderless language use and exposure, there was differential support across language subgroups (African/Islamic, Latin America, Orthodox Europe, West and South Asia) for some of the hypothesized relationships between genderless language use and exposure and gender ideology.

How do subsystems of language evolve over time? It is commonly assumed that grammatical changes of language are slower than vocabulary changes. Using a Dirichlet process mixture model to analyze rates of language evolution in 81 Austronesian languages, the authors find that to the contrary, the grammatical features of language tend to change at a faster rate than basic vocabulary. Furthermore, their results show that grammatical features have higher rates of homoplasy, more frequent contact-induced change, and less deliberate differentiation than basic vocabulary.

The researchers utilize a GIS approach in order to examine the relationship between global linguistic distribution and various cultural and environmental factors. The resulting positive association between political complexity and both latitude and language range leads the researchers to propose that large, politically complex entities exert a homogenizing pressure on language. However, the causal link may also be in the other direction, with possession of common language facilitating the creation of more complex political institutions.

This study sampled over 4,012 language varieties, comparing their version of 40 generally universal words, such as body parts, water, the sun, pronouns, and common behaviors or animals. These language variations were tested in their association to "specific humidity," the variable used to represent ambient humidity of a language location. Results suggest negative association between the dryness of climate and the utilization of vowels, consitent with the idea that dry air affects the behavior of the larynx.

This article explores the possible relationship between the cultural evolution of language, music, and genetic variation beyond the level of language families. Due to their linguistic diversity, the authors use a sample of 14 Northeast Asian societies with matching information on their music, genetics, and linguistic patterns. The variables measuring language are lexicon, phonology, and grammar. Then, the authors compare each variable's relationship to music and genetic variation. The results only show a significant correlation between grammar and genetic variation.

The authors statistically test existing theories and proposals regarding the existence and nature of the creole language profile. Results indicate that consistencies and variation between creole languages, as with non-creole languages, is a result of genealogical and contact processes. However, creole languages are unique from non-creole languages in that they have more than one language in their ancestry. Findings "call into question the existence of a pidgin stage in creole development and of creole-specific innovations." Support is found for the idea that language learning and transmission are strikingly resilient processes.

The authors design and implement two tasks requiring linguistic and non-linguistic spatial reference across a linguistically-diverse sample in order to examine the relationship between language and cognition cross-culturally. The results, which indicate large conceptual variation in frame of spatial reference across as well as strong correlation between use of absolute descriptors and absolute cognitive representations within language communities, suggest that language structure may actively shape the systems of spatial representation available to different cultural groups.

This article empirically examines Levi-Strauss’ (1966) theory on cannibalism, that “an analysis of cooking [and by extension cannibalism] as a language will reveal certain structural oppositions in society” (54). Theoretical and methodological weaknesses indicate cooking may not be analogous to language and therefore linguistic theory is not applicable for the analysis of cannibalism.