Study: Ancient world may have had tens of thousands of languages, peak around 1,000 BC to 1,000 AD
Computer models based on hunter-gatherer data suggest language diversity surged with agriculture, peaked at around 50,000 languages between 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD, then collapsed as empires spread, leaving today's 7,500 languages.
A biblical echo
The study, published in Science by an international team from Spain, the USA, and Germany, evokes the Tower of Babel story. The biblical tale of language confusion may have a real-world parallel: the peak of language diversity around the 6th century BC, when the Etemenanki temple tower was built. The researchers describe a "Golden Age" of linguistic diversity between roughly 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD, when tens of thousands of languages may have been spoken.
Modeled from hunter-gatherers
The team did not count prehistoric languages directly. They built computer models using ethnographic data from 171 hunter-gatherer societies, combined with world population estimates. This allowed them to estimate the distribution of groups with distinct languages over time. The approach reveals a pattern of growth and decline that challenges assumptions about early linguistic richness.
The rise and fall of languages
At the start of the Holocene 12,000 years ago, there were likely only 4,500 to 6,200 languages. As agriculture spread and populations grew, diversity increased, reaching a peak of perhaps 50,000 languages, ten times the early Holocene figure. Then, as large states and empires expanded, dominant languages replaced many smaller ones, causing a rapid decline. Today, about 7,500 languages remain.
A first surprise was that there was probably no extraordinary linguistic richness immediately before the introduction of agriculture. Most likely there were even fewer languages than today.
Linguistic diversity then increased over millennia along with the growing human population.
- Early Holocene (12,000 years ago)
- 5350
- Peak (1,000 BC–1,000 AD)
- 50000
- Today
- 7500
- Early Holocene: 4,500–6,200 languages spoken
- Agriculture and population growth drive increase in language diversity
- Peak diversity: roughly 50,000 languages, a 'Golden Age'
- Rise of empires and dominant languages causes rapid decline
- About 7,500 languages remain; extinction processes continue
Extinction's deep mark
First author Damian Blasi notes that the languages we see today are the survivors. Extinction processes may have shaped linguistic diversity far more than previously recognized. The dominance of expanding groups' languages meant that many local tongues vanished without a trace.
Extinction processes may have shaped linguistic diversity much more than we previously realized.
Outside caution
Linguist Johann-Mattis List, not involved in the study, cautions that such reconstructions carry many uncertainties. "We simply don't know how it was," he said, but added that it is good such studies are undertaken. Blasi responded that the models are "very robust" and the assumptions well-founded.
We simply don't know how it was.
