Normalized frequency distribution of language sizes and language areas (home ranges) over the world.

<p>When a language is spoken in two or more disconnected domains, the total area (sum of all disconnected polygons) is represented. The data set includes all living languages plus about 700 recently extinct languages listed in the Ethnologue <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0040137#pone.0040137-Gordon1" target="_blank">[22]</a>. Curves stand for Gaussian fittings on the logarithmic variables. Both fittings are statistically highly significant, yielding correlation coefficients for the distribution of population sizes and for the distribution of areas.