 The hypercollective nature and Q-Value of languages thus help to explain the dilemma that a speaker of a peripheral language faces when deciding whether to learn the central or hypercentral language.The hypercollective nature and Q-value also help to explain the accelerating spread and abandonment of various languages.In that sense, when people feel that a language is gaining new speakers, they would assign a greater Q-value to this language and abandon their own native language in place of a more central language.