言語学者が数千年にわたる音韻の変化をシミュレートする言語モデルを使用している。このモデルは100年あたり1.8%の語 Changes率を予測している。現在の語の数が50,000である場合、200年後にはいくつの音韻変化が発生すると予測されるか？

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 13:24:17 +0000

Simulating Thousands of Years of Sound Changes: How Linguists Model Language Evolution Language is not static — it evolves continuously over centuries, shaped by social, cultural, and cognitive forces. A groundbreaking approach in historical linguistics involves using advanced language models to simulate and predict how sound systems (phonology) change over millennia. Recent studies employ computational models that estimate historical sound changes by analyzing patterns across thousands of years, offering insights into the future trajectory of languages. One key metric in such simulations is the rate of phonemic change — how often sounds shift within a language’s sound inventory. A recent model developed by researchers demonstrates a projected phonemic change rate of 1.8% per century, reflecting typical historical trends where around 1.8% of phonemes shift or disappear every 100 years. This rate accounts for factors like vowel mergers, consonant simplifications, and stress shifts observed in real language evolution. Given that modern languages currently possess approximately 50,000 distinct phonemes (expanded from historical baselines), these models can project long-term change. With a 1.8% annual shift per 100 years, the model predicts a cumulative transformation over 200 years.