In 2010, the linguists Gary Lupyan and Rick Dale published a controversial academic paper: Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure
This looked at more than 2,000 languages, paying particular attention to the demographic context of each one. This meant considering many factors, including the:
- number of native (L1) speakers
- geographical distribution of those speakers
- relationship with neighbouring languages.
Morphology
Counterintuitively, the study found that more widely used languages are structurally simpler. One key signifier of this is the system of inflectional morphology - the way that word endings and/or syntax changes according to the case used.
For personal pronouns, for example, English uses only three cases. Estonian has fourteen, while Finnish has fifteen. Students of Hungarian wrestle with eighteen cases. And over in the Caucuses, the people of Dagestan use thirty cases in Tsez.
Does smaller mean simpler?
Languages with fewer speakers often have a reputation for being difficult to master: Irish, Basque and Hungarian often cited.
In the case of Irish, there are 95,000 native speakers, though only a small percentage of these speak Gaelic as their sole language. This has resulted in at least three distinct provincial dialects (Ulster, Munster, Connacht) - each structurally distinct.