Statistical modelling techniques and concepts from biology are applied to linguistic data to show a general and law-like relationship between the frequency with which meanings are used in everyday language and their rate of evolution throughout Indo-European history: the more a word is used, the less likely it is to change over time. The findings demonstrate a fundamental aspect of language evolution that is predicted to apply to all languages.
- Mark Pagel
- Quentin D. Atkinson
- Andrew Meade
