Cornell News: mathematical model of language death

Cornell News: mathematical model of language death: "The key factor is status, according to Cornell graduate student Daniel Abrams and Steven Strogatz, Cornell professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, who described the model in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Nature . Others, they say, have used mathematical modeling to study the evolution of grammar, syntax and other structural features, but they believe this is the first attempt to quantify competition between languages."