Language is my thing: linguistics, teaching German, researching L2 acquisition, & even creating artistic conlangs for media! #SLA #phonology #German @FiatLingua
College Park, MD
Joined May 2023
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"...minimal assumptions about the structure of forms—only that they are ultimately expressed as one-dimensional sequences of discrete symbols." Predictability is helpful, but online speech processing work bunks a discrete string & 1D take, so why adopt it?
share.google/vQTQdZ2kwNAAqsY…
This article reads clearly for a phonetician, but some #linguistics jargon makes it a bit opaque to others. In short, AI identified some patterns in Sperm Whale vocalizations & human scientists followed up, finding complex vowel-like structure! Wowie! 😲👍 earth.com/news/breakthrough-…
Fun to see work like this that digs into similar questions & to see it building on work by colleagues I've met or have professional connections to. Exposure to languages is key for the first steps of extracting words from streams of speech! #L2 #Phonology
nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
LMs "still rely on inconsistent reasoning strategies, suggesting superficial pattern matching rather than robust epistemic understanding. Most models lack a robust understanding of the factive nature of knowledge, that knowledge inherently requires truth."
nature.com/articles/s42256-0…
It's not often we see a #conlang focus piece in French media. I had the opportunity to interview with Marc Belpois from @Telerama when he joined us for the 11th Language Creation Conference @UMD_LSC last month. He mentions several of us from @FiatLingua!
telerama.fr/cinema/qui-se-ca…
In this time when people are considering putting learning aside & leaning more on AI tools, it's good to remember that #language learning isn't just about delivering messages--it's also great mental exercise. Learning languages rewires our brains! #L2 #SLA
dw.com/en/language-learning-…
For those #conlang creators who like to use phonesthemes in their lexical creation, here's some interesting science to look at!
@FiatLingua
The bouba-kiki effect is the mental association speakers have between certain sounds and certain shapes. It stems from a famous 2001 experiment by linguists V.S. Ramachandran & Edward Hubbard, replicating an earlier 1924 experiment by psychologist Dimitri Uznadze, in which participants were presented with pairs of random shapes and nonsense word and asked to associate each nonsense word with a shape. For the kiki vs. bouba pair, over 95% of speakers of both English and Tamil selected the spiky shape as “kiki” and the curvy shape as “bouba”.
This important study continues to foster new research as linguists seek to understand to what extent word-meaning pairings are random vs. sound-symbolic.
#kiki #bouba #linguistics #language #psychology #physics @xkcd
Dr. Erin Moriarty's talk at LCC11 @FiatLingua last weekend on #languaging in sign languages included the role of gesture to negotiate meaning. All #natlangs use gestures. Gesture use in #ASL, rather than setting it apart from spoken languages, puts it in good company with them.
Every known language has gestures, but how much do we really know about them? Lauren has spent the past 5 years diving into the literature and boiling it down into...
Gesture: A Slim Guide
This month we get enthusiastic about Lauren’s new book!
soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm/…
This weekend, in partnership with dozens of amazing people, we hosted the 11th Language Creation Conference @FiatLingua. Part of my contribution was a public lecture & crash course for the "conlang curious" on Friday.
youtube.com/live/uReCpOfr2cM…
2 hr 2 min - 2 hr 54 min - my talk
Special thanks to @UMD_LSC @umdsllc & @umdlanghouse for hosting LCC for our first time back in person in 6 years & our first time back in the U.S. in 10 years! Thanks also to our other generous UMD sponsors, the Department of Linguistics and the College of Arts & Humanities!
I had a great time presenting our #L2 #German children's book #OER project today at Languages Without Borders in Montréal & met lots of lovely people & their amazing ideas about teaching this week. I hope to come again. For now, home again, home again, jiggety jig!
@CASLT_ACPLS
Looking forward to an interesting talk on #Decolonizing how we teach European foreign languages in North American contexts at Languages Without Borders, hosted by @CASLT_ACPLS in Montréal. @umdsllc @UMD_LSC @UofC_SLLLC
In 2 weeks, we're hosting the 11th Language Creation Conference (LCC11) at the University of Maryland. Curious about it? Check out our schedule, and search "LCC11" for more info!
@FiatLingua @umdlanghouse @UMD_LSC @umdsllc #conlang
drive.google.com/file/d/1H4D…
This won't surprise #conlang creators & users, but now we have experimental science for support. Conlangs are languages!
@FiatLingua #LCC11
From High Valyrian to Klingon: Artificial Languages Engage the Brain Like Natural Speech - neurosciencenews.com/artific… via @neurosciencenew
Last couple days for Early Bird registration or to order a T-shirt by March 11 for the 11th Language Creation Conference (LCC11) at the @UMD_LSC on April 11-13, 2025! In person & online registration available! @umdsllc @umdlanghouse
@FiatLingua #conlang
conlang.org/language-creatio…
Bokander (2020, p. 36): "[Crosslinguistic Influences] have been researched at all levels of language [...] but also in lexis, morphology, syntax, discourse, and pragmatics and in conceptual transfer." CLI is always on my mind in #conlang design, too. #SLA
euroslajournal.org/articles/…
Since before the Constitution was even ratified, the US has been #multilingual. To insist on a single language only is to insist on cutting ourselves off at the knees economically, socially, & intellectually, AND violating basic human rights for millions.
actfl.org/news/actfl-stateme…
A reminder that the United States has always been #multilingual :
Jessie Kratz (2021), "Constitution Day: Translating the Constitution", a blog of the United States Archive
prologue.blogs.archives.gov/…
