Why are some languages confused for others? Investigating data from the Great Language Game
Why are some languages confused for others? Investigating data from the Great Language Game
复制标题
为什么有些语言与其他语言混淆？
作者：
Hedvig Skirgård;Seán G. Roberts;Lars Yencken
在本文中，我们探讨的结果，一个大型的在线游戏，称为“伟大的语言游戏”，在其中人们听一个音频语音样本，并作出强制选择猜测的身份的语言从2个或更多的选择。这些数据包括来自78种语言的400个音频记录的1500万个猜测。我们调查了在游戏中哪些语言被混淆了，以及这是否与语言学家在语言之间识别的相似性有关。这包括共享的词汇项目，类似的声音库存和建立的历史关系。我们的发现是，正如预期的那样，玩家更容易混淆两种客观上更相似的语言。我们还调查了可能影响玩家准确选择目标语言的能力的因素，例如有多少人说这种语言，这种语言在书面材料中被提及的频率以及目标语言社区的经济实力。我们看到，非语言因素影响玩家准确识别目标的能力。例如，具有更广泛的“全球影响力”的语言通常更容易被正确识别。这表明语言和文化知识都影响着对语言及其相似性的感知和识别。
In this paper we explore the results of a large-scale online game called ‘the Great Language Game’, in which people listen to an audio speech sample and make a forced-choice guess about the identity of the language from 2 or more alternatives. The data include 15 million guesses from 400 audio recordings of 78 languages. We investigate which languages are confused for which in the game, and if this correlates with the similarities that linguists identify between languages. This includes shared lexical items, similar sound inventories and established historical relationships. Our findings are, as expected, that players are more likely to confuse two languages that are objectively more similar. We also investigate factors that may affect players’ ability to accurately select the target language, such as how many people speak the language, how often the language is mentioned in written materials and the economic power of the target language community. We see that non-linguistic factors affect players’ ability to accurately identify the target. For example, languages with wider ‘global reach’ are more often identified correctly. This suggests that both linguistic and cultural knowledge influence the perception and recognition of languages and their similarity.
影响因子：
2.7
作者：
Calhoun, Sasha;Carletta, Jean;Beaver, David
通讯作者：
Beaver, David