Honest aliens and yet another attempt at Proto-Australian

Happy February! And why is February spelled with two ⟨r⟩'s if we only pronounce one of them anyway? I've got your answer on the blog:

February

Why is “February” spelled with an ⟨r⟩?

Linguistic DiscoveryDaniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.

Welcome to the second issue of Discovery Dispatch, a weekly roundup of the latest language-related news, research in linguistics, interesting reads from the week, and newest books and other media dealing with language and linguistics!

This week I finished reading the Three-Body Problem trilogy (which also has a Netflix show) and was blown away. The series is one of the most original, thought-provoking, and tense stories I’ve ever read. The trilogy immediately earned a place amongst my favorite books of all time. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

And, it has linguistics! This week's issue of the World of Words newsletter is all about the linguistics of The Three-Body Problem—what we can learn about the design features of language from a hypothetical alien language in which it's impossible to lie. Read (or watch) this week's issue here:

What if we could hear each other’s thoughts? The linguistics of The Three-Body Problem

Imagine if every word you thought could be heard by everyone around you. In this world, thinking would be the same as communicating. What would language—and society—be like?

Linguistic DiscoveryDaniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.

Current Linguistics

Recently published research in linguistics.

The history of Australia's Aboriginal languages has long been a mystery. Many people have hypothesized, not unreasonably, that all Australia's languages must be related—it is a giant island, after all.

Reality, however, is not so tidy. The approximately 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia can be grouped into 27 different families, but a single one of those families, Pama–Nyungan, comprises about 300 of those languages. The remaining families are clustered in the north of the continent (Top End), and given the convenience label Non-Pama–Nyungan, even though all those families are unrelated to each other. They're also not related to any of the languages on the nearby island of New Guinea.

There have been many attempts to group the Non-Pama–Nyungan families into a larger macro-family, or even into a hypothetical superfamily with Pama–Nyungan called Proto-Australian. Such attempts are often speculative at best, and shoddy scholarship at worst.

Well, now we've got another attempt to add to the list.