Apparently several languages in South America have colexified "cat" and "dog" One language, Zinacantán Tzotzil, has colexified "cat" and "insect" clics.clld.org/edges/2009-1...

Markˣ@shjsat.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Baby English word of the day at ≈ cat (used for dogs??) ex "Weh at?" tr. 'Where is the dog?' n.b. This is apparently homophonous with "at" (< ant) which is what he calls all insects. Clearly, more fieldwork is needed.

Surprised, humbled and grateful in equal measures to have received this award for my talk on the evolution of kinship semantics. #EvolangXVI, you were gorgeous - here’s to next time in Nijmegen!

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Congratulations to @maisyhallam.bsky.social for winning the #EvolangXVI Hurford Prize for the best student presentation!

I’ll be talking about my PhD research for the very last time at @evolangconf.bsky.social in Plovdiv next week! Come along to hear about the evolution of kin term semantics, 10:15 on Wednesday 8 April in the Small Auditorium.

Centre for Language Evolution@uoe-cle.bsky.social · 4mo ago

@maisyhallam.bsky.social, @simonkirby.bsky.social, Fiona M. Jordan, @kennysmithed.bsky.social: Individual preferences during classification align with kinship semantics across languages. See evolangconf.github.io/2026/proceed...

Happy to share the first version of my textbook "Quantitative Data Analysis for Linguists in R". stefanocoretta.github.io/qdal/ Comments and suggestions welcome! (on the GitHub repo: github.com/stefanocoret...) The textbook takes you from 0 to basic stat modelling with Bayesian regression.

Today, we published a paper on the strength of language universals (if language has X, it also has Y) given spatial & phylogenetic autocorrelation in @nathumbehav.nature.com ! It is a cool research project, led by the brilliant Annemarie Verkerk at @uni-saarland.de www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enduring constraints on grammar revealed by Bayesian spatiophylogenetic analyses - Nature Human Behaviour

Despite their great diversity, human languages are shaped by recurring grammatical universals. Verkerk et al. show that about one-third of the proposed universals hold cross-linguistically through ana...

nature.com

The New episode of PPLS Perspectives is available now! Maisy Hallam chats with Prof. Jenny Culbertson about how #technology, #AI, and global change are reshaping the future of language — and why #linguistic diversity matters more than ever. Listen now: edin.ac/4r7axdA

⚠️ New paper! Why do words sound so similar? In an agent-based model + communication game, we show that production/comprehension pressures trade off to shape lexicon structure. In @cognitionjournal.bsky.social w/ @simonkirby.bsky.social & Jenny Culbertson. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The lexicon adapts to competing communicative pressures: Explaining patterns of word similarity

Cross-linguistically, lexicons tend to be more phonetically clustered than required by the phonotactics of the language; that is, words within a langu…

sciencedirect.com

We've just launched a Discord server for #jsPsych users to collaborate and get technical help. I'll be hosting office hours tomorrow from 10:30-11:30 AM EDT. Hop in with any questions! discord.gg/RCKWJ4qb3p

New paper in @openmindjournal.bsky.social with @simonkirby.bsky.social, @kennysmithed.bsky.social and Fiona Jordan! Kinship terms overwhelmingly exhibit predictive structure - terms in one part of the system help us predict other terms - a pattern which emerges because it helps us generalise better.

Predictive Structure Emerges During the Generalisation of Kin Terms to New Referents

Abstract. Despite cross-linguistic diversity in how kin relations map to terminology, there are constraints on which kin may be categorised together. But what are the constraints on kin term variation...

direct.mit.edu

If you like semantic category systems and efficiency biases, come say hi at #CogSci2025! Efficient communication drives the semantic structure of kinship terminology (P3-H-71, Friday 2 Aug @ 13:00)

Centre for Language Evolution@uoe-cle.bsky.social · last yr.

Languages differ dramatically in how they categorise family members - what drives this semantic variation? For 1215 languages, our computational model reveals a hierarchy of semantic features for kinship, suggesting that kin term semantics are optimised for efficient communication. (8/)

Join us at the National Museum of Scotland July 19th to learn about animal communication and what makes human communication different from the rest of our primate family! 🐵 www.nms.ac.uk/events/monke...

This comic is attacking me personally. via @phdcomics.bsky.social and with Alt-text.

This, from a country whose economy has, for more than 20 years, been substantially subsidised by the benefits flowing from connection to a major movie franchise associated with a piece of fantasy literature...

Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles@siouxsiew.bsky.social · 2y ago

This statement in particular is horrifying and clearly not true: “Real impact on our economy will come from areas such as physics, chemistry, maths, engineering and biomedical sciences.”

can I code fast? no. but can I code well? also no. but does my code work? alas, no