New Research Reveals Peak Linguistic Diversity 1,000 to 3,000 Years Ago, Challenging Previous Assumptions
A new study led by Yale University researchers, including historical linguist Claire Bowern and evolutionary anthropologist Damián Blasi, suggests that human linguistic diversity reached its peak between 1,000 and 3,000 years ago, with tens of thousands of languages potentially coexisting globally. This finding challenges the long-held belief that humanity has consistently lost linguistic diversity since the last Ice Age. The research utilized demographic data from 171 present-day hunter-gatherer and fishing societies and computer modeling to estimate the number of ethnolinguistic communities throughout the Holocene. The model indicated that at the beginning of the Holocene, approximately 12,000 years ago, humans spoke between 4,500 and 6,200 languages. As populations expanded and agriculture developed, linguistic diversity grew. The decline in languages began roughly 2,000 years ago, predating European colonial expansion, and is attributed to the rise of large states and empires that absorbed smaller comm... 
