The evolution of
words – in any language – seem to evolve on a 14-year cycle in terms of use,
popularity and trends.
Marcelo Montemurro at
the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom and Damián Zanette at
Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research identified 5,630
commonly used nouns and analysed how their popularity changed over the last
three centuries (New Scientist, 30 November 2016). What was trending, when and
why? The what and when were easier to determine, but why was more difficult.
A curious pattern
emerged. Montemurro and Zanette found that English words rose in popularity and
then fell out of favour in cycles of about 14 years, although cycles over the
past century have tended to be a year or two longer. They also found evidence
of 14-year cycles in French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish words and
their evolution.
To find the pattern,
they wrote computer scripts to dig through Google Ngram, a database of the
words used in nearly five million digitised books. They ranked the nouns in
order of popularity and tracked how their rankings changed from 1700 to 2008.
Some cycles appeared
to coincide with historical events. For example, large collections of words
declined in popularity in the years around the world wars. Although the reason
for this is unclear, Montemurro thinks it could be related to political trends.
Mark Pagel at the
University of Reading in England says “Language is not all over the place. It’s
remarkably consistent.” However, Pagel says these cycles could be statistical coincidence.
The 14-year cycle is
puzzling. Some baby names have been found to move in and out of popularity over
roughly the length of a human generation. But with nouns in general, Pagel
doesn’t see an obvious cultural connection. “It doesn’t fit the human life
history,” he says. “There’s no particular reason why it should be 14 years.”
Montemurro admits
that the significance of the cycle’s length remains unclear, but he believes it
is due to more than chance. “It’s very difficult to imagine a random phenomenon
that will give you this pattern,” he says. He thinks that further study of the
cycle could reveal insights about human behaviour and the nature of fashion and
trends.
“Assuming these
patterns reflect some cultural dynamics, I hope this develops into better
understanding of why we change the topics we discuss,” Montemurro says. And why
it happens in cycles.
MARTINA
NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and
the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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