Language

Varikin Findings: There are no universals in the cultural evolution of kinship terminology

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There is huge potential for variation between kinship terminology (systems of words for relatives) cross-culturally. In fact, for a set of 16 relatives, there are 10,480,142,147 theoretically possible ways to categorise them. Given the potential for effectively unbridled variation in kinship terminology, observed diversity seems remarkably constrained, and has previously been categorised into six key … Read more

Varikin Findings: How Pama-Nyungan Grandparent Naming Systems Change

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The VariKin project has examined the cultural evolution of kinship terminology from a range of perspectives and methods. Considerable research by our group and others has focused on the comparison of cousin and sibling terms, but grandparent terms, the topic of this paper, are largely understudied. The social salience of grandparents, due to their frequent … Read more

VariKin Findings: Frequently-used kinship terms evolve slowly

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— by Maisie Ford Language is constantly changing. As new words are born or enter a language, old words fall out of use. Linguists have known for a long time that some words endure longer than others. Some core vocabulary, like numbers, names of common animals/plants, and words for parts of the body can be … Read more

New paper on Murrinhpatha children’s understanding of kinship lexicon and grammar (post by Dr Alice Mitchell)

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Among the vast number of things children need to learn about language is how to appropriately refer to other people. One way to do this is to use kinship terms—words like ‘great-grandmother’, ‘brother-in-law’, or ‘sister’. The particular set of kinterms a child needs to know will obviously depend on the languages they’re learning to speak. … Read more

Conversation across languages and cultures: Dr Joe Blythe

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The past few weeks the lab has hosted Dr Joe Blythe as  Benjamin Meaker Visiting Fellow from the University of Bristol’s Institute for Advanced Studies (thanks IAS!). Joe’s final event is this evening, and we’re delighted to be hosting his public lecture: Conversation across languages and cultures: Cross-linguistic perspectives on taking turns to talk. Details: … Read more

Polynesian Lexicon Online

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I’ve been meaning to pimp this: POLLEX is online! Simon says: I’d just like to announce that Ross Clark and I have placed the POLLEX (Polynesian lexicon) database online at http://pollex.org.nz. POLLEX-Online currently contains 55,183 reflexes with 4,746 reconstructions from 68 languages. An awesome resource for anyone interested in the Pacific, comparative and historical linguistics, and … Read more

is this thing on?

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Er, so I’m writing up still. End is in sight! Back to blogging sometime in February! For now I just wanted to post this quote for posterity, although no doubt I will find someplace to jam it in the conclusion. On comparative linguistics and ethnography In conducting diachronic research on a language that existed five … Read more

on dialects of english

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My friend J once described something as being “kitty-corner” from a person in a restaurant, and I seriously thought she was making up random feline-words because she’s such a sucker for cats. It turned out that kitty-corner (or catty-corner) is some Yankee slang for “diagonally opposite” – who knew? I just thought of this as … Read more