Why the world had far more languages before farming populations expanded
Around 7,500 languages survive today, but researchers believe agricultural expansion and empire-building wiped out thousands more from an earlier peak.
Today roughly 7,500 languages exist worldwide, but that figure masks a far richer past. Researchers believe agriculture was a major cause of this decline: as farming populations grew and spread, they displaced smaller hunter-gatherer communities, erasing their languages in the process.
Expanding empires accelerated this further. An open question remains whether early population growth first created more languages before the great losses set in.
- 7,500
- Languages today
- Agricultural expansion
- Driver
- Empire-building
- Accelerator
- Hunter-gatherer communities
- Displaced groups
Why it mattersIf farming populations caused the first major wave of language loss, the pattern helps explain how today's 7,500 languages came to be so few.
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