If you’ve seen this article, you may be sitting with anger, pain, or just exhaustion at dealing with another helping of colonial nonsense. We feel a responsibility to speak back when these colonizing narratives show up, yet again, in such a prominent venue. endangeredlanguages.com/story/respon...

The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 2w ago

The idea that we have a special duty to prevent the death of languages is instantly compelling to anyone who loves languages. But is it true? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Update your bookmarks and sign up for email alerts - the journals of the @lingsocam.bsky.social are now publishing with Cambridge! 📧 https://cup.org/4tHungN #LangSky #Language #Phonology #JBLAC

Beyond Words by Karen Stollznow From first words to last, this book explores how we learn, use, and lose language, and what it reveals about us. 📚 https://cup.org/4otVGc1

Tunen diminution: - nouns in class 19/13 - change nouns from other classes to 19/13 + reduplication of noun stem - form compound "child + N" - "small of N" - "small N" - verbal suffix indicating the action is short in duration / incompletely done - verbal suffix indicating object is small (!)

praatpicture has a couple new features in the newly released version 1.8.0! You can now embed audio with a moving cursor to your figures (thanks Marina Cantarutti, and thanks to @sorensorensen.bsky.social for donating his voice!) 1/3

After advancements in gene editing led to the successful treatment of life-threatening health conditions, some tech bros are considering a new application for the controversial science: making super-smart babies to save the world from dangerously capable AI.

Creating baby geniuses to thwart the AI threat? (Yes, really.)

The new wave of Silicon Valley–backed gene-editing startups is straight out of “Brave New World.”

ow.ly

we need more linguists because i don't want to have to explain to otherwise educated people that there's no such thing as a "biological pronoun"

Linguistic Society of America@lingsocam.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Language shapes everything, from how we think to how we connect and innovate. Linguists are essential to understanding communication, and to creating ethical, responsible AI. We need more linguists. #TalkAboutSocialSciences #TalkAboutHumanities

Kiana Gardner on “Processing of prosodic information by (Canadian) English speakers” at today’s Verbatim Colloquium, organized annually by our Undergraduate Linguistics Society. Joint work with Prof. Athanasopoulou and Dr. Nikolić in the University of Calgary Developmental Psycholinguistics Lab

Elijah Durocher on “Vowel mergers in Cavite Chavacano” at today’s Verbatim Colloquium, organized annually by the University of Calgary Undergraduate Linguistics Society

Closing remarks at the Verbatim Colloquium by Jessica Wong, president of the University of Calgary Undergraduate Linguistics Society

"Even in a neighbourhood you think you already know, you can learn completely new things."

How to get to know your neighbourhood | Psyche Guides

Whether you are a newcomer or you’ve lived there for years, learn to look closer and deepen your connection

psyche.co

In a Working Scientist profile, conservation researcher Anne Poelina speaks with Nature Careers about giving first authorship to a source with deep knowledge about water, the river itself. 🌍 🧪

Why I made a river my co-author

Anne Poelina gives first authorship to a source with deep knowledge about water — the river itself.

go.nature.com

New Paper with Tongpan Rabo Fwangwar, titled "Iconicity and expressiveness of grammatical tones targeting ideophones in Mwaghavul". All tonally derived verbs in Mwaghavul have ideophonic bases and are derived through one of two lexically determined alternations. doi.org/10.1007/s110...

“Articulatory correlates of consonantal length contrasts: The case of Japanese mimetic geminates” by Francesco Burroni, Shigeto Kawahara and Jason A. Shaw (Jan. ’25) doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

“Sound symbolism can count three segments (whereas phonological constraints presumably cannot)” by Shigeto Kawahara and Gakuji Kumagai (July ’25) www.researchgate.net/profile/Shig...

💡New publication: In the latest volume of Pacific Linguistics, William B. McGregor provides a full grammatical description of Warrwa (north-western Australia), based on fieldwork with the last two speakers of the language. 🔗https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111401959

More than $3000 USD for open access fee. Kuku comot my head na!

New publication by Prof. Adrien Zakar 🗺️ “Gimmicks of War” shows how Ottoman maps were reactivated to legitimize territorial claims, mobilized as affective tools of political authority 🔗https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article/45/3/429/402209/Gimmicks-of-War @dukepress.bsky.social #History #STS

We've revamped the Futures of Language website! Read about the project, team, papers, and other news at futuresoflanguage.org Also, our weekly updates are collated in the Futures Library, a growing collection of short pieces on ideas & people that drive the project: futuresoflanguage.org/library/

I realise this is like focusing on kitchen hygiene in the Titanic at this point, but: the LLM the NEH asked "Does the following relate at all to DEI?" (!) usually - though inconsistently - cited language documentation and preservation as grounds for grant termination. ("Yes" => "Defund")

Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Here is the spreadsheet DOGE had ChatGPT produce, to determine which grants were too DEI www.historians.org/wp-content/u...

“Tomoip phonetics and phonology” by Russell Barlow and Don Killian (2023) pure.mpg.de/rest/items/i...

Does anyone know a copy editor who specializes in editing phonetics and phonology paper? I need their service. I don't want to pay any company #linguistics #language #phonology

Day three of #IcoLL In the blink of an eye it’s already over. Here’s Pamela Perniss during the final keynote.

Opening of #IcoLL, *the* conference on iconicity in language and literature. Looking forward to sharing and learning much. And of course reconnecting with and meeting new scholars. And all of this in Nagoya, Japan! #ILL26 #IcoSem26 #IcoLL26

This new paper in Science is also accompanied by a cool perspective piece by @mperlman.bsky.social & @bodowinter.bsky.social! #language #linguistics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In search of meaning

The origins of language are not found in the bouba-kiki effect

science.org

Simon Fisher@profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 6mo ago

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

“The Vastness of Language Variation Across the Globe” organized by Lenore Grenoble and Jeff Good today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Phoenix, AZ aaas.confex.com/aaas/2026/me...

'Queer and Trans Speech Science and Technology', an #Interspeech2026 Special Session offering a space to build community and provide a foundation for future trans- and queer-driven speech research sites.google.com/view/is-quee...

Join us for the SFU Multilingual Week keynote by Kyra Borland, titled “Many Worlds: Experiences working in Indigenous language revitalization outside academia.” Feb 26, 12:30pm. Zoom: Email lingcomm@sfu.ca for the link. Register & learn more: www.sfu.ca/linguistics/... @sfu.ca

Our paper (w/ @bodowinter.bsky.social and @mperlman.bsky.social) is finally out, officially 🥳. In it, we set ourselves the lofty goal of defining iconicity, focusing on its subjectivity, context-dependence, and gradability. Let us know if you agree with our definition? 🤔 doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...

History of Publishing on Black Language and Culture Friday, February 6, 2025 | 6–7:30 PM ET Join JBLAC for an illuminating conversation on the history of publishing practices surrounding Black language and culture. www.lsadc.org/ev_calendar_...