Category Archives: Linguistics

Free book on Chinese, other Asian languages

Posted on September 4, 2006 by Kevin

Mark Swofford of Pinyin News has announced that the 1991 Schriftfestschrift: Essays in Honor of John DeFrancis on His Eightieth Birthday (Sino-Platonic Papers) is now available as a free PDF in honor of the 95th birthday of Professor DeFrancis. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialects, Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Media, Language-Sites, Linguistics | Leave a comment

Oral language-play for speech impaired

Posted on August 24, 2006 by Kevin

Researchers at the Universities of Dundee, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh in Scotland have developed experimental pun-generating software for children who use computerized assistance to communicate. It’s called System to Augment Non-speakers Dialogue Using Puns (STANDUP). Kudos to the researchers for recognizing … Continue reading →

Posted in HUMOR, Humor Research, LANGUAGE, Language Technology, Linguistics | 1 Comment

Cattle herd speaking with accent

Posted on August 23, 2006 by Kevin

Cows in Somerset, England, seem to have picked up the local accent of their human caretakers. Their moos have a strong West Country “-r” (the coastal region’s accent is thought to be the origin of stereotyped pirate talk “Arr!”). The … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialects, HUMOR, LANGUAGE, Linguistics | Leave a comment

Noun / verb sounds: breakthrough or not?

Posted on August 15, 2006 by Kevin

Researchers at Cornell University have found that people use the sounds of nouns and verbs to process them in sentences. The researchers also graphed the 3,158 words from the study and found that about 65 percent of the nouns have … Continue reading →

Posted in LANGUAGE, Linguistics | Leave a comment

Results: 2006 Linguistics Olympiad

Posted on August 11, 2006 by Kevin

I wrote two weeks ago about the then-coming 2006 International Linguistics Olympiad for high school students. It took place in Estonia last week, and now the results are in. Bulgaria’s second team won the Team competition. Furthermore, a member of … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Linguistics | Leave a comment

Of spam art and blog novels

Posted on July 31, 2006 by Kevin

Computer artist Alex Dragulescu uses information visualization to turn the text (and other information) of spam E-mails into growing-plant art and the text of blogs into graphical novels. For the latter, he’s also using computational linguistics to analyze the blog … Continue reading →

Posted in LANGUAGE, Language Technology, Linguistics | Leave a comment

Signal processing in baby and monkey brains

Posted on July 27, 2006 by Kevin

A recent study using positron emission tomography (PET) with macaques/rhesus monkeys shows evidence that they process their species’ oral signals differently from other sounds (as humans do with language) and in brain regions analogous to those used by humans for … Continue reading →

Posted in LANGUAGE, Linguistics | Leave a comment

2006 International Linguistics Olympiad

Posted on July 25, 2006 by Kevin

Break out your vowel charts; the fourth annual International Linguistics Olympiad for high school/secondary students will be held in Tartu, Estonia, next week. The 2006 program runs from Tuesday, August 1st to Sunday, August 6th. The International Linguistics Olympiad is … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Linguistics | 2 Comments

Inuit Sign Language gathering

Posted on July 22, 2006 by Kevin

Deaf Inuit of Nunavut, a territory in northern Canada, got together recently along with family, friends, and professionals for a focus group (http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/60721_10.html) [EDIT (3/26/2010): dead link]. It’s interesting that “one in 1,000 Inuit is deaf, and a high number … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Linguistics, Sign Languages | 3 Comments

Standard Appalachian English

Posted on July 20, 2006 by Kevin

Here’s an article (http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&%09s=1045855935235&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189249849&path=%21health%21healthology) [EDIT (3/26/2010): dead link] about Appalachian English. It gives some history and dispels the frozen-in-time-English myth (note: Cajun isn’t frozen-in-time-French either). It includes a good general quote about dialects: [Dennis] Preston, the Michigan State University linguist, … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialects, LANGUAGE, Language-Sites, Linguistics, Words / Dictionaries | 1 Comment