River density and landscape roughness are universal determinants of linguistic diversity

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences Vol/Iss. 281(1784) The Royal Society Published In Pages: 1-9
By Axelsen, Jacob Bock, Manrubia, Susanna

Hypothesis

Linguistic diversity will be predicted by some of 14 environmental variables across continental regions universally (2).

Note

Only landscape roughness and density of river systems predict language diversity across all continental regions. In general, variation in environmental variables predicts more language diversity in African and extended Asian than in American and European continental regions.

Test

Test NameSupportSignificanceCoefficientTail
Bayesian analysisSupportedp < 0.05UNKNOWNUNKNOWN