Some dialect words are shared among geographically distant groups of people without close interaction. Such a pattern may indicate the current or past presence of a cultural centre exerting a strong influence on peripheries. For example, concentric distributions of dialect variants in Japan may be explicable by repeated inventions of new variants at Kyoto, the ancient capital, with subsequent outward diffusion. Here we develop a model of linguistic diffusion within a population network to quantify the distribution of variants created at the central population. Equilibrium distributions of word ages are obtained for idealized networks and for a realistic network of Japanese prefectures. Our model successfully replicates the observed pattern, supporting the notion that a centre–periphery social structure underlies the emergence of concentric patterns. Unlike what has previously been claimed, our model indicates that a novelty bias in linguistic transmission is not always necessary to account for the concentric pattern, whereas some bias in the direction of transmission between populations is needed to be consistent with the observed absence of old words near the central population. Our analysis on the realistic network also suggests that the process of linguistic transmission was not much affected by between-prefecture differences in population size.

中文翻译：

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量化从中心人口传播的方言词的空间模式

一些方言词在地理上相距遥远的人群之间共享，没有密切的互动。这种模式可能表明一个文化中心当前或过去的存在对周边地区产生了强大的影响。例如，日本方言变体的同心分布可以通过在古都京都反复发明新变体并随后向外扩散来解释。在这里，我们开发了一个人口网络内的语言扩散模型，以量化在中心人口中创建的变体的分布。为理想化网络和日本县的现实网络获得词年龄的平衡分布。我们的模型成功地复制了观察到的模式，支持中心-边缘社会结构是同心模式出现的基础的观点。与之前声称的不同，我们的模型表明，语言传播中的新奇偏见并不总是需要解释同心圆模式，而在人口之间传播方向上的一些偏见需要与观察到的旧词的缺失相一致靠近中心人口。我们对现实网络的分析还表明，语言传播过程不受地区人口规模差异的影响。而种群之间传播方向的一些偏差需要与在中心种群附近观察到的旧词的缺失相一致。我们对现实网络的分析还表明，语言传播过程不受地区人口规模差异的影响。而种群之间传播方向的一些偏差需要与在中心种群附近观察到的旧词的缺失相一致。我们对现实网络的分析还表明，语言传播过程不受地区人口规模差异的影响。