A student of mine asked me to help her out with the following problem.
Would somebody care to provide an answer ?
"Linguists study the changes in word usage in a language over time. They
find that words disappear from a language according to an exponential model
W(x) = e raised to the power -0.75 x where W(x) represents the percent of
words remaining in a language after 'x' thousand years (ignoring the addition
of new words.)
Formulate a visual presentation to estimate the dates for the disappearance
of 25%, 50%, 75%,and 100% of today's language. Suppose a word fell into
disuse this year. In what year would it have originated ? List any words
that have disappeared from our language in the last 100 years. Estimate the
time of their origin."
Thanks.
Greg Darakjian
Anaheim High School
Anaheim, CA