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September 28, 2024

Script Encoding Initiative awarded Mellon and Internet Society Foundation grants

The Script Encoding Initiative led by Anushah Hossain and Deborah Anderson was awarded two grants this summer to continue its work on making writing systems available on digital devices. A four-year grant from the Mellon Foundation will support research on over twenty writing systems that are not yet incorporated in the Unicode Standard, a widely-implemented communication standard. A second two-year grant from the Internet Society Foundation will support science communication projects to demystify SEI’s work on language technologies for public audiences. Visit SEI’s websiteto learn more about their work.

September 26, 2024

Linguistics events this week (September 27-October 4)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

Hyman and Nichols co-edit volume on language change

Larry Hyman and Johanna Nichols, together with several co-editors, have published a volume on "Language change for the worse" with Language Science Press. The full citation is below. Congrats!

Enke, Dankmar W., Hyman, Larry M., Nichols, Johanna, Seiler, Guido, Weber, Thilo & Hölzl, Andreas (eds.). 2024. Language change for the worse. (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 33). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5116353
CLA Updates

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

Garrett publishes on Morpurgo Davies
Andrew Garrett's essay "Remembering Anna Morpurgo Davies" has appeared as part of "Anna Morpurgo Davies, 10 years on", a collection of memorial essays published by the Philological Society on the tenth anniversary of the death of Anna Morpurgo Davies (1937-2014), whose career included stints as a Be

September 25, 2024

Bleaman and Kommerell publish in Linguistics Vanguard

Isaac Bleaman and Rhea Kommerell ('24) published their article "A computational approach to detecting the envelope of variation" in Linguistics Vanguard. Congrats!

Hyman presents at workshop on Pertinacious Phonology & Morphology
Larry Hyman presented a paper "Latent high tones in Limba (Tonko dialect; Sierra Leone)" at a workshop on Pertinacious Phonology & Morphology, 
organized by Aditi Lahiri (Oxford University), held September 23- 25, 2024 at Ettington Park Hotel. Congrats!

September 24, 2024

Berkeley linguists present at Obviation workshop

 Two talks will feature Berkeley linguists at the upcoming workshop on Understanding Obviation at McGill (https://obviationworkshop2024.wordpress.com)

September 23, 2024

Garrett book featured in two publications

Andrew Garrett's book The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall: Language, Memory, and Indigenous California is featured in two new publications:

McLaughlin gives keynote

Mairi McLaughlin gave a keynote presentation called "Variation, varieties, variants: the role of the media" at the 14th Kongress der Frankoromanistikverbands in Passau, Germany on September 26th. Congrats!

Sande gives colloquium talk at University of Illinois

Hannah Sande will give a colloquium talk on Discontinuous Harmony in Guébie at the University of Illinois Urban-Champaign on Monday, October 7.

September 19, 2024

Sweetser presents keynote at workshop on Figurative Language and Large Language Models
Eve Sweetser will be making a keynote presentation, "MetaNet: its current status and future directions," in the workshop on Figurative Language and Large Language Models, at the 21st EURALEX conference in Cavtat, Croatia (Oct. 8-12, 2024).

September 18, 2024

Linguistics events this week (September 20-27)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

  • SSCircle – Friday, Sep 20 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4:30pm
    Amy Rose Deal (UC Berkeley) on "Case discrimination, Agree, and the theory of features"
  • Phorum – Friday, Sep. 20 - 4-5pm
    Niko Schwarz-Acosta (UC Berkeley) on “Al Cʉɐntu da Penuchu”: Perceptual Learning of a Vowel Shift in Mexican Spanish
  • Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group – Monday, Sep. 23 - Dwinelle 1229 and Zoom - 3-4pm
    Rachel Bortnick (Ladinokomunita/American Ladino League) on Ladino language revitalization efforts and her own life
  • LRWG – Wednesday, Sep. 25 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
    Beth Piatote (Berkeley) with a workshop/talk on writing and creative expression in language revitalization
  • SSCircle – Friday, Sep 27 - Dwinelle 1303 -- 3-4:30pm
    Maksymilian Dąbkowski (UC Berkeley), Title TBA
  • Phorum – Friday, Sep. 27 - Zoom - 4-5pm

    Alexia Hernandez (Stanford) on "The role of experience on the cognitive underpinnings of linguistic bias: An interdisciplinary investigation of Miami-based Cuban American speech"

Beguš speaks at Harvard

Gašper Beguš is giving a talk at the linguistics department at Harvard University on Friday, September 20 (https://linguistics.fas.harvard.edu/blog/week-sept-16). The title of the talk is "Building realistic models of language with deep learning". Congrats!

September 17, 2024

Garrett publishes in Diachronica
Andrew Garrett has published a short essay, "Four decades in historical linguistics", as part of the continuing "40@40" series in Diachronica. (A prepublication version is here.) Congrats!
Jarvis presents at Sinn und Bedeutung

Rebecca Jarvis gave a poster at Sinn und Bedeutung 29 on Tuesday (https://sub29.unime.it/il-convegno/).

September 16, 2024

Bleaman gives colloquium talk at Brown
Isaac Bleaman will be giving a colloquium talk for the Program in Linguistics at Brown University on Thursday, September 26. The title of his talk is "Social dimensions of variation in Yiddish: Historical perspectives and new insights."

September 12, 2024

Linguistics events this week (September 13-20)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

CLA Updates

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

  • On Wednesday began the first visit supported by the new CLA Community Research Grant, a group of Cucapah community members and allies coming from Mexicali, Mexico. They consulted documentary materials on the language in the CLA (pictured just below) and the Bancroft Library, and presented the "Manual de lengua Cucapáh" at Language Revitalization Working Group, co-authored by Fernando Márquez Duarte (UC Riverside; second from left) and elder Margarita Valenzuela Portillo, whose son Alejandro Maclis V. is pictured second from right.

CLA community research grant recipients

O'Hagan presents at Arawakan workshop

Zachary O'Hagan was in Lyon, France earlier this week participating in the workshop Classifiers in the Arawakan Languages at the Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage. He presented on "Distinguishing Classifiers from Inalienable Nouns in Caquinte".