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Language Diversity
The online World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a resource that is available to the public at this link:
In the WALS database, linguists have collected and organized various features of the world’s languages. The interface makes it possible to look at the geographic distribution of these features. If a feature is scattered widely across many of the world’s regions, this is a clue that the feature likely arose spontaneously in unrelated languages. On the other hand, if a feature is tightly clustered by geographic area, this suggests that the feature originated in one language and then appeared in that language’s offshoots over time, or that it spread among languages that were in close contact with each other. Below are several examples of the language features that can be seen in the WALS database.
The number of consonants in a language’s phonemic inventory
You can see a map plotting the size of consonant inventories at the link below. Based on this map, would you conclude that the number of consonants in a language is a fairly random feature or one that shows tight historical constraints?
http://wals.info/feature/1A#2/19.3/152
You can go here to read a summary of the geographic distribution of this feature and a discussion of what this distribution implies:
Linguistic marking of first- versus second-hand knowledge
Some languages have a special linguistic marker that is used to distinguish between statements for which you have first-hand evidence and statements for which your evidence is hearsay. In English, we do not have a special morpheme that accomplishes that, nor do we have to include this information—but we can choose to signal second-hand information as in the examples below:
They say he is even faster than he used to be.
Apparently, Tom and Sam are getting married.
This map shows which languages do have a special morpheme to mark this information, and what type of morpheme is used in those that do:
http://wals.info/feature/78A#2/28.1/155.5
Here’s the discussion:
The preference of a language for prefixes versus suffixes
The map:
http://wals.info/feature/26A#2/22.6/152.9
Summary and discussion:
Now spend some time poking around on the WALS database. See if you can identify one feature that is relatively randomly dispersed and another that is very tightly clustered by geography.