Current Linguistics

Current Linguistics

AI is helping scholars understand ancient tablets, documents, and inscriptions

Also this week: The definition of dyslexia is updated for the first time in 20 years + Dogs listen for consonants in speech, just like human infants + Bionic (bolded) reading doesn’t speed up skilled readers

Current Linguistics

Dictionary.com chooses “maxxing” as the Word of the Year

Also this week: Is AI changing how people talk? + Wikimedia documents endangered indigenous languages

Current Linguistics

Storytelling around campfires may have shaped human language

Also this week: AI agents invent their own language + Human speech found to follow a rhythm also found in the animal kingdom + A new book on lost languages

Current Linguistics

Large language models are shrinking linguistic diversity

Also this week: How habitat shapes the vocal repertoire of primates + The Canadian English dictionary gets a new update + Many loathed “Americanisms” are actually British coinages

Current Linguistics

Choctaw Nation launches Rosetta Stone language app

Also this week: Do languages become less complex with more new adult speakers? + Is it okay to let a language die?

Current Linguistics

Wordsmaxxing: Merriam-Webster adds 1,400 new entries to its dictionary

Also this week: How children talk can indicate risk for future mental health problems + Birdsong and whalesong have both been found to follow a fundamental law of human language

Current Linguistics

What an ape’s laugh can teach us about human language

Also this week: Why grammar snobs don’t actually like language + Bluey released in an Australian indigenous language + Enrollment in advanced language classes dropping in the UK

Current Linguistics

Language genes may be much older than previously thought

Also this week: ConlangCrafter: The AI that invents languages + What linguists think everyone should know about language

Current Linguistics

The Golden Age of Language might have boasted 75,000 languages approximately 2,000 years ago

Also this week: The Herculaneum scrolls are giving up their secrets + The Bantu Expansion: The mass migration that transformed sub-Saharan Africa

Current Linguistics

Why your foreign accent sucks

Also this week: Why you might not want to learn language like a child + How California “Valley Girl” talk changed the way America speaks + Statistical physics reveals how languages evolve

Current Linguistics

When words look like their meaning, we process them faster

Also this week: Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to a Eurovision Song Contest that embraces linguistic diversity + Linguists are mapping Rhode Island’s linguistic diversity

Current Linguistics

Homophones, plurals, and language “rulescucks” are roiling prediction markets

Also this week: More Ukrainians are switching from speaking Russian to Ukrainian + Scientists say AI is bringing us closer to talking to animals + A new book on the world’s vanishing languages