1,300 languages ranked by complexity

Linguists have long thought that social context shapes grammar: communities with many non-native speakers, like trade hubs, were believed to favor simpler, easier-to-learn systems, while isolated, homogenous groups develop dense, specialized grammatical rules. A new study compiled measurements across about 1,300 languages to test whether languages used mainly by “societies of strangers” indeed show reduced grammatical complexity compared with languages used in more stable, insider communities.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology analyzed grammatical features and social histories and found that differences in grammatical complexity build up over long time periods. Their models showed little evidence that a high share of non-native speakers leads to rapid simplification. Instead, complexity appears to change slowly and depends on many factors beyond immediate social mix, so the neat division between “complex insider” and “simplified outsider” languages does not hold across the global sample.

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