Birdsong exhibits a hidden feature of human language

Welcome to this week’s edition 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!

📢 Updates

Announcements and what’s new with me and Linguistic Discovery.

✍️ Babel Young Writer’s Competition 2025

Every year, Babel: The Language Magazine runs a Young Writer’s Competition which aims to encourage young linguists, who are invited to submit articles on a linguistics topic of their interest for publication in Babel magazine. The winner also receives a year’s subscription! Be sure to let the young linguists in your life know about this opportunity.

Guidelines

• Deadline: Monday, December 1, 2025
• Length: 2,000–2,500 words
• Topic: Any linguistic topic. The important thing is that your discussion is accessible and interesting for Babel readers.
• Format: Entries should be clearly presented in a Word file, with images submitted as separate high-resolutions JPEGs.
• Submission: Email your entry to babelthelanguagemagazine@gmail.com with the subject “Young Writer’s Competition”.

🏴‍☠️ Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy mateys! September 19th be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Here be the ways to speak like a true buccaneer for all ye landlubbers out there, ye scurvy dogs!

Shiver Me Timbers! Talk Like a Pirate Day Phrases, Origins, and Celebrations - Rosetta Stone

Celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with the best pirate expressions to make you sound like a true buccaneer! Plus activity ideas, origins, and phrases to learn!

Rosetta StoneJennifer Gunner

🆕 New from Linguistic Discovery

This week’s content from Linguistic Discovery.

Why would you tell me that⁈

It occurred to me this week that many of my more recent readers/followers probably aren’t aware that I’ve done a number of podcast interviews over the years, so I thought I’d share them over the next several weeks, starting with the Why would you tell me that⁈ podcast. I talk with award-winning comedians and broadcasters Neil Delamere and Dave Moore about the most important number in the world, and how that number pops up in surprising places all over language today.

🗞️ Current Linguistics

Recently published research in linguistics.

Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation applies to birdsong

Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation states that the more frequently a word is used, the shorter that word tends to be. New research now finds that this law applies to birdsong as well: the most frequently used chirps and tweets tend to be shorter, while infrequently-used ones tend to be longer.

Birds Are Obeying a Secret Law of Human Language

Zipf’s law of abbreviation explains how commonly spoken words tend to be shorter. The idea is so intuitive, birds appear to use it, too.

Popular MechanicsDarren Orf

All Human Languages Mysteriously Obey Zipf’s Law Of Abbreviation. It Applies To Bird Songs Too.

Who knew a tweet tweet could be so fascinating?

IFLScienceTom Hale

Birds may follow a hidden pattern of human language

New research suggests that bird vocalizations may follow hidden rules similar to those that govern human language.

Earth.comNoulida Nahan

Does Zipf’s law of abbreviation shape birdsong?

Author summary Since ancient times, people have been fascinated by birdsong, and imagined it to be the “language of birds.” This analogy has become more exciting as researchers have discovered that many genes and parts of the brain involved in birdsong learning and development are also involved in human speech. But, there is still much we do not know about how birdsong and human language are similar or different. Recently, researchers have been interested in whether Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation (ZLA) holds in birdsong. In human language, ZLA says that words that are used more frequently tend to be shorter, because communication is more efficient if we have short words for the ideas we use most often. In birdsong, researchers have asked whether more frequently used notes are shorter, but results so far have been inconclusive. We developed a new computational tool for studying ZLA in birdsong and applied it to songs from 11 bird populations. We found evidence for ZLA in the set of populations we studied, but the pattern is weaker than in written human languages. More bird populations will need to be studied to confirm our results, and our computational tool will help researchers do that work.

PLOS Computational BiologyR. Tucker Gilman ,

Bilingualism possible in people with rare genetic condition that normally limits speech abilities

Rett syndrome is a rare neurological condition that disrupts physical and linguistic development, affecting around one in 10,000 women and even fewer men. For decades, researchers assumed that people with the condition, many of whom lose speech during early childhood, were confined to a limited range of cognitive and linguistic abilities.

But in Wales, where many families are bilingual and speak both English and Welsh at home, our recent case study showed that access to two languages can help the linguistic growth of someone with the speech-limiting developmental condition Rett syndrome.

Bilingualism possible in people with rare genetic condition that normally limits speech

A study shows people with Rett syndrome, a rare genetic condition, can be bilingual, challenging long-held assumptions.

The ConversationEirini Sanoudaki

• Day, Cooper, & Sanoudaki. 2024. Bilingualism in the preserved speech variant of Rett syndrome: A longitudinal case study. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, pp. 1–20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2025.2508260.

📃 This Week’s Reads

Interesting articles I’ve come across this week.

Behind Enemy Lines: My Deep Dive Into the Grammar Gene Debate

A Personal Perspective: Facing the interplay between genetic factors and linguistic development prompted a question: Should I trust my instincts or those of others?

Psychology TodayArturo Hernandez, Ph.D.

Surzhyk: why Ukrainians are increasingly speaking a hybrid language that used to be a marker of rural backwardness

Once reviled as a ‘humiliating’ Russified form of the language, now Surzhyk is emerging as a tool for Russian speakers to identify as Ukrainians.

The ConversationOleksandra Osypenko

📚 Books & Media

New (and old) books and media touching on language and linguistics.

Rising above: Language revitalization in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

In this new book, Cherokee citizen Benjamin E. Frey chronicles his odyssey of being introduced to the Cherokee language with trepidation as a young adult and his eventual work revitalizing the Cherokee language in a Cherokee way. In the first book to examine the process of language shift and revitalization among this band, Frey explores the institutional, economic, and social factors that drove the language shift from Cherokee to English, interpreted through the lens of a member of the Eastern Band Cherokee community in conversation with other community members. Rising Above navigates Frey’s upbringing, the intricacies of language and relationships, the impact of trauma, and the quest for joy and healing within the community.

In addition to language documentation and preservation, Rising Above explores how to breathe new life into the language and community, using storytelling to discuss the Cherokee language, its grammatical components, and its embedded cultural ideologies alongside its interactions with broader American society.

🗃️ Resources

Maps, databases, lists, etc. on language and linguistics.

Native Land Digital

Native Land Digital (NLD) is an Indigenous-led non-profit organization that provides a digital map of Indigenous territories, languages, and treaties globally. Their goal is to support education, awareness, and research while respecting Indigenous data sovereignty. The above screenshot shows their current map for the languages of North America. Pretty incredible and detailed work!

Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land

Native Land is a resource to learn more about Indigenous territories, languages, lands, and ways of life. We welcome you to our site.

Native-Land.ca

👋🏼 Til next week!