Choctaw Nation launches Rosetta Stone language app

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Linguistic Discovery digest, a weekly roundup of the latest language-related news, research in linguistics, interesting reads from the week, and newest books and media on language and linguistics!

📢 Updates & Announcements

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

Butter No Parsnips

I recently went on the Butter No Parsnips podcast to talk about Chitimacha language revitalization! But our conversation took us to faraway topics like historical linguistics, typology, and etymology too! I had a ton of fun talking with hosts Emily Moyers and Kyle Imperatore, so I think you’ll enjoy it too. Have a listen at the links:

201. Language Revitalization: How Linguists Revive Lost Languages with Danny Hieber — Butter No Parsnips Podcast

This week, Kyle and Emily talk with linguist ⁠Daniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.⁠ (⁠@linguisticdiscovery⁠) about typology, his work with the Chitimacha tribe, and what it takes to revitalize a language. And as you might imagine, it takes a lot.

Butter No Parsnips PodcastSeth Gliksman

🆕 New from Linguistic Discovery

This week’s content from Linguistic Discovery.

How much should you talk to your toddler?

In 1995 an infamous study claimed that young children in higher socioeconomic status homes hear up to 30 million more words by age 4 than those in lower socioeconomic status households.

Does this mean that the more you speak to your child, the better they eventually become at language? Should you be speaking to your child as much as humanly possible? Are children who receive less language input linguistically disadvantaged compared to children of more loquacious parents? In this installment of my series on the science of baby talk, we’ll look at what the research says about how much you should be talking to your child, and discuss the infamous 30-million-word gap and whether it’s something you need to worry about.

Do kids in poor families really hear 30 million fewer words by age 4?

On the “word gap” and how much you should talk to your toddler

Linguistic DiscoveryDaniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.

You can also read all of the previous issues in this series at the links below:

• Part 1: Why you should be talking to your infant
• Part 2: What’s the point of baby talk?
• Part 3: Is baby talk good for your child?
• Part 4: Do all cultures use baby talk?
• Part 5: Baby talk in the languages of the world
• Part 6: How much should you talk to your toddler?

🔓 Unlocked: Do these Stone Age symbols push back the origins of writing by tens of thousands of years?

This article is now available to all subscribers, free or paid. So if you weren’t able to read it when it came out, have a read now!

Do these Stone Age symbols push back the origins of writing by tens of thousands of years?

Nope. The real finding is even cooler.

Do these Stone Age symbols push back the origins of writing by tens of thousands of years?

Nope. The real finding is even cooler.

Linguistic DiscoveryDaniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.

📰 In the News

Language and linguistics in the news.

Choctaw Nation launches Rosetta Stone language app

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is launching the Chahta Anumpuli language app through Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program. The service will provide free access to Chahta Anumpa, the Choctaw language, for Choctaw tribal members and nonmembers interested in learning.

Choctaw Nation, Rosetta Stone launch Chahta Anumpuli language app

A new partnership between the Choctaw Nation and Rosetta Stone is bringing the Choctaw language to a digital learning platform.

News9.comIsabel Contreras

University of Alaska Southeast launches first licensure program for teaching indigenous languages

Classes have started for the University of Alaska Southeast’s first Master of Arts in Teaching Indigenous Languages—the state’s first full licensure route for speakers. Many of the state’s indigenous language educators previously had to work under a limited certificate that caps both scope and pay, so this program is a big step towards aiding language revitalization in the state. The hybrid program admits both high-fluency speakers and advanced learners of any indigenous language.

UAS launches Alaska’s first licensure program for teaching Indigenous languages

Master of Arts in Teaching Indigenous Languages prepares speakers to advance language revitalization as fully licensed teachers.

University of Alaska Southeast

🗞️ Current Linguistics

Recently published research in linguistics.

Do languages become less complex with more new adult speakers?

The field of sociolinguistic typology investigates whether the structure of societies affects the types of languages they speak. Do certain demographics lead to certain types of languages? One hypothesis that linguists have entertained in recent years is that languages become less complex as the number of adult speakers learning the language increases. In other words, languages with lots of second-language learners might be getting simpler. However, the research summarized in this article for The Conversation suggests that the correlation isn’t so straightforward. (Note that this research was published in 2023. I’m admittedly not certain how it has been received by others in the field in the intervening years.)

Do languages become less complex with more new adult speakers? Research shows it’s not that simple

The idea a language should grow simpler if people need to learn it as adults has an intuitive appeal. But an analysis of more than 1,200 languages shows this doesn’t quite stack up.

The ConversationOlena Shcherbakova

• Shcherbakova et al. 2023. Societies of strangers do not speak less complex languages. Science Advances 9(33). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf7704.

Why do you have to reread some sentences and not others?

New research digs into why we breeze through some sentences in a book or article but have to reread others to comprehend their meaning. […] Humans and AI process language in similar ways during the earliest moments of reading: both rely on next-word predictions. However, as reading continues and passages become more complex—often requiring rereading—humans’ processing differs from that of AI, which is entirely built on next-word prediction and therefore cannot account for how we navigate these types of passages.

Why do you have reread some sentences and not others?

New research digs into why we breeze through some sentences in a book or article but have to reread others to comprehend their meaning.

FuturityJames Devitt-NYU

📃 This Week’s Reads

Interesting articles I’ve come across this week.

A controversial piece in The New Yorker reviews Sophia Smith Galer’s new book, How to kill a language: Power, resistance, and the race to save our words (Amazon | Bookshop):

Sometimes It’s O.K. to Let a Language Die

When cultural preservation comes at the expense of speakers’ decisions, sometimes it’s O.K. to let a language die.

The New YorkerNikhil Krishnan

Gerald Roche pushes back on this perspective over at The Conversation:

Languages are disappearing, and the problem is political

Language loss is often a reluctant choice made to escape violence, not a willing choice made to gain benefits.

The ConversationGerald Roche

Here’s a review of Florence Hazrat’s new book, On the mark: From periods to interrobangs—How punctuation remade the world (Amazon | Bookshop).

The Curious Power of Punctuation

Commas, dashes, semicolons, and spaces have shaped how we read for centuries. What happens when machines start crafting the sentences?

The New YorkerLouis Menand

Linguist Heather Littlefield argues that many of the words recently added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary aren’t technically new, in the sense that the word-building techniques they use are centuries old:

AI and digital culture make their way into Merriam-Webster

Merriam Webster’s new words include vibe coding and AGI. A Northeastern linguist explains what they reveal about life today.

Northeastern Global NewsKatya Poltorak

This is an older article but I’m sharing it because Swahili is a language near and dear to my heart, having lived there my junior year of college and also conducted fieldwork there during grad school:

Kiswahili: how a standard version of the east African language was formed – and spread across the world

By the 1950s a standard version of the language emerged, today spoken by an estimated 200 million people.

The ConversationMorgan J. Robinson

How do you talk to aliens? This linguist has some ideas

A linguist lays out what communicating with aliens could actually involve—and what that tells us about human language

Scientific AmericanRachel Feltman and Sushmita Pathak and Brianne Kane and Alex Sugiura

🗃️ Resources

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

Frequency Dictionaries

Did you know there are dictionaries that are organized by how frequently each word is used? SUPER useful if you're learning the language. Here’s a collection of frequency dictionaries from Routledge for various languages:

A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries) by Mark Davies (2007-11-30) : Amazon.nl: Boeken

A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries) by Mark Davies (2007-11-30) : Amazon.nl: Boeken

Van het merkVan de auteur

👋🏼 Till next week!

Ryan Starkey of Starkey Comics fame recently put together a timelapse of the linguistic history of Britain and Ireland. This is the first time I’ve seen him make an animation/timelapse like this, and I thought it was really nicely done!

Ryan Starkey on Instagram: “16 centuries of British and Irish linguistic history in 34 seconds. From the fall of the Roman empire, through the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Viking rule, Norman conquest, and the spread of English. These maps feaure over 30 languages, many of which are now lost to history. See the images on my profile for a full explanation of each frame in this clip. #LanguageMaps #HistoryOfEnglish #CelticLanguages #LinguisticHistory #MapHistory”

913 likes, 50 comments - starkey_comics on August 28, 2026: “16 centuries of British and Irish linguistic history in 34 seconds. From the fall of the Roman empire, through the Anglo-Saxon invasions, Viking rule, Norman conquest, and the spread of English. These maps feaure over 30 languages, many of which are now lost to history. See the images on my profile for a full explanation of each frame in this clip. #LanguageMaps #HistoryOfEnglish #CelticLanguages #LinguisticHistory #MapHistory”.

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