Internal differences among language families in global languages
Using language doculects collected from the Automated Similarity Judgment Program(ASJP)database as research materials and adopting the automatic similarity judgment method of language,we calculated the internal language distances and similarities of 20 major language families in the world to examine language differences within language families.The results show that Nuclear New Guinea languages have the greatest difference among the 20 language families and that Mayan languages have the smallest difference.The distribution of the data shows that language families with large internal differences have a concentrated distribution of language similarity data,with most languages distributed near the mean,showing a symmetrical"olive-shaped"distribution;language families with moderate internal differences have a relatively concentrated distribution of language similarity data but with some languages or dialects with high similarity,showing an asymmetric"olive-shaped"distribution;language families with smaller internal differences have language similarity data showing"dispersed"bipolar or multipolar distribution.Our analysis of the internal differences among controversial families suggests that language groups with high similarity exert a stronger influence on intrafamilial patterns.Additionally,similarity analysis proposes the possibility of gauging the extent to which certain language groups diverge from other languages in the language family.
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