title: River density and landscape roughness are universal determinants of linguistic diversity.
abstract: Global linguistic diversity (LD) displays highly heterogeneous distribution patterns. Though the origin of the latter is not yet fully understood, remarkable parallelisms with biodiversity distribution suggest that environmental variables should play an essential role in their emergence. In an effort to construct a broad framework to explain world LD and to systematize the available data, we have investigated the significance of 14 variables: landscape roughness, altitude, river density, distance to lakes, seasonal maximum, average and minimum temperature, precipitation and vegetation, and population density. Landscape roughness and river density are the only two variables that universally affect LD. Overall, the considered set accounts for up to 80% of African LD, a figure that decreases for the joint Asia, Australia and the Pacific (69%), Europe (56%) and the Americas (53%). Differences among those regions can be traced down to a few variables that permit an interpretation of their current states of LD. Our processed datasets can be applied to the analysis of correlations in other similar heterogeneous patterns with a broad spatial distribution, the clearest example being biological diversity. The statistical method we have used can be understood as a tool for cross-comparison among geographical regions, including the prediction of spatial diversity in alternative scenarios or in changing environments.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Astrobiología, INTA-CSIC, , Ctra. de Ajalvir km 4, Madrid, Torrejón de Ardoz 28850, Spain.
authors.forename: Jacob Bock
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Axelsen
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Manrubia
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D015233:Models, Statistical; D045483:Rivers
keywords: biogeography; environment; landscape roughness; language–area relationship; linguistic diversity; river systems
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