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Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2009.03.038   (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.)

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Abstract

Human history leaves fingerprints in human languages. Little is known over language evolution and its study is of great importance. Here, we construct a simple stochastic model and compare its results to statistical data of real languages. The model is based on the recent findings that language changes occur independently of the population size. We find agreement with the data additionally assuming that languages may be distinguished by having at least one among a finite, small number of different features. This finite set is used also in order to define the distance between two languages, similarly to linguistics tradition since Swadesh.

Keywords: Complex system; Branching process; Population distributions; Language classification

@article{schwammle09languageDistribution,
  author={Veit Schwammle and Paulo Murilo Castro de Oliveira},
  title={A simple branching model that reproduces language family and language population distributions},
  journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications},
  year={2009},
  month={July},
  volume={388},
  number={14},
  pages={2874-2879},
  doi={10.1016/j.physa.2009.03.038},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schwammle09languageDistribution.html},
  keywords={Complex system; Branching process; Population distributions; Language classification}
}