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A note regarding ‘On the power-law distribution of language family sizes’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2006

RICHARD ARNOLD  and
LAURIE BAUER
RICHARD ARNOLD
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
LAURIE BAUER
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
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Abstract

Wichmann (2005) discusses the power-law distribution n=ar−b as a description of the relationship between the number of languages n in a language family, and the rank r of that family in a list ordered by decreasing n. Two datasets are used by Wichmann, one from Ethnologue (Grimes 2000), which lists 130 language families, and one from Ruhlen (1987), listing 21 families. We have reanalysed these data and find that the method of fitting a power-law used in the paper is not optimal because it does not allow for a sensible maximum value for the family size n.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , July 2006 , pp. 373 - 376
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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