  n this paper, we attempt to explain the emergence of the linguistic diversity
that exists across the consonant inventories of some of the major language
families of the world through a complex network based growth model. There is
only a single parameter for this model that is meant to introduce a small
amount of randomness in the otherwise preferential attachment based growth
process. The experiments with this model parameter indicates that the choice of
consonants among the languages within a family are far more preferential than
it is across the families. The implications of this result are twofold -- (a)
there is an innate preference of the speakers towards acquiring certain
linguistic structures over others and (b) shared ancestry propels the stronger
preferential connection between the languages within a family than across them.
Furthermore, our observations indicate that this parameter might bear a
correlation with the period of existence of the language families under
investigation.
