Geographical Roots of the Coevolution of Cultural and Linguistic Traits / Oded Galor, Ömer Özak, Assaf Sarid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Galor, Oded.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Özak, Ömer.

Sarid, Assaf.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w25289.

NBER working paper series no. w25289

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

This research explores the geographical origins of the coevolution of cultural and linguistic traits in the course of human history, relating the geographical roots of long-term orientation to the structure of the future tense, the agricultural determinants of gender bias to the presence of sex-based grammatical gender, and the ecological origins of hierarchical orientation to the existence of politeness distinctions. The study advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that: (i) geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher natural return to agricultural investment contributed to the existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense, (ii) the agricultural determinants of gender gap in agricultural productivity fostered the existence of sex-based grammatical gender, and (iii) the ecological origins of hierarchical societies triggered the emergence of politeness distinctions.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2018.