Group items tagged

"This shows that our brain has a complex sensitivity to our own speech that helps us distinguish between our vocalizations and those of others, and makes sure that what we say is actually what we meant to say," Flinker says.... While the study doesn't specifically address why humans need to track their own speech so closely, Flinker theorizes that, among other things, tracking our own speech is important for language development, monitoring what we say and adjusting to various noise environments.

Oral forms like ballads and epics exist in every culture, originating long before the advent of written language. In preliterate eras, tales had to be appealing to the ear and memorable to the mind or else they would simply disappear. After all, most messages we hear are forgotten, or if they're passed on, they're changed beyond recognition - as psychologists' investigations of how rumors evolve have shown. In his classic book Memory in Oral Traditions, cognitive scientist David Rubin notes, "Oral traditions depend on human memory for their preservation. If a tradition is to survive, it must be stored in one person's memory and be passed on to another person who is also capable of storing and retelling it. All this must occur over many generations… Oral traditions must, therefore, have developed forms of organization and strategies to decrease the changes that human memory imposes on the more casual transmission of verbal material." What are these strategies? Tales that last for many generations tend to describe concrete actions rather than abstract concepts. They use powerful visual images. They are sung or chanted. And they employ patterns of sound: alliteration, assonance, repetition and, most of all, rhyme. Such universal characteristics of oral narratives are, in effect, mnemonics - memory aids that people developed over time "to make use of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of human memory," as Rubin puts it.

Darwin's theory of language developing from love songs

I knew there was a reason I love goats so much!

Study examined the medical records of 648 Alzheimer's patients in Hyderabad and found that bilinguals developed dementia four to five years later than monolinguals. 

The University of Hawaii plays a lead role in a major statewide initiative called the Hawaii Language Roadmap, which aims to create a robust, multilingual workforce in Hawaii. This video gives an overview of the project. On June 16, 2015, thanks to the efforts of several stakeholders, including the Hawaii Language Roadmap, Hawaii's Board of Education unanimously voted to approve a Seal of Biliteracy for Hawaii's public school students. The policy adopted by the BOE reads as follows: The Board of Education hereby establishes a Seal of Biliteracy to be awarded upon graduation to students who demonstrate high proficiency in either of the State's two official languages and at least one additional language, including American Sign Language; provided that a student who demonstrates a high proficiency in both of the State's two official languages shall be awarded a Seal of Biliteracy. The purposes of the Seal of Biliteracy are to recognize the importance of: (1) enabling students to be college, career, and community ready in today's global society; (2) establishing an educational culture that recognizes and values the wealth of linguistic and cultural diversity students bring to the classroom; (3) supporting opportunities for study of and increasing proficiency in 'Ōlelo Hawai'i, an official language of the State of Hawai'i; and (4) encouraging partnerships with institutions of higher education and community organizations to increase access to language instruction in a variety of languages. The Department of Education shall implement the Seal of Biliteracy, including developments of criteria that students must satisfy to receive the Seal. Rationale: The Board of Education recognizes that there is personal, cultural, social, academic, and vocational/occupational value in encouraging students to maintain, or develop, proficiency in more than one language.

Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development.

"The verb tweet is gradually developing its own syntax according to what it means and what its users regard as its combinatory possibilities. That is a really interesting, though unintended, large-scale natural experiment in how syntactic change works."

"The discrepancies between the two accounts which have been identified here are genuine, farreaching, and not merely apparent discrepancies. [...] it is clear that a definitive judgement on the character and extent of Genie's linguistic development still cannot be given."

"The goal of the Lexicalist project is to develop a dictionary that depicts, in real time, the changing demographics of English in the United States, a dictionary that supplements the fundamental meaning of a word or phrase with the current cultural backdrop that's informing its use today."

allows you to enter your twitter handle and have your tweets fed through a language analysis program for psychological profile (developed by researchers in psychology at UT Austin and University of Aukland).

"Might people who write only by printing - in block letters, or perhaps with a sloppy, squiggly signature - be more at risk for forgery? Is the development of a fine motor skill thwarted by an aversion to cursive handwriting? And what happens when young people who are not familiar with cursive have to read historical documents like the Constitution?"

contains links to two scholarly essays, including how the tool was developed and used

25 maps that show the development of the English language.

This article explores the affects of high social interaction from a young age on children.

Last summer, Apple surprised almost everyone at WWDC with the announcement of Swift, a new programming language for iOS and Mac development. The language feels like something Apple would invent. Like several of the languages currently popular in web development, it has a concise, readable syntax that's easier to pick up than Apple's older language, Objective-C.

In his study, anthropologist Caleb Everett found that certain languages were shaped by their environment. One of the environmental factors that affected the types of words that were found in a language is altitude. Languages that originated at higher altitudes, in thinner air resulted in specific sounds.

If you want your kids to learn to talk in the best possible way, a new study suggests you should ditch the baby talk and speak to them in normal sentences. The findings suggest that videos that claim to teach toddlers, or flash cards for tots, may not be the best idea.

"Baby Sign" is a popular new method or parenting in which the parents teach the baby sign language to help develop the baby's language development. Although it seems as if teaching a baby sign would help the baby learn to communicate verbally, scientists say otherwise.