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

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

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

— 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)

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

Cross-disciplinary anthropology & biology workshop Part 1: Behaviour

Anthropology & Biology cross-disciplinary workshop part 1: Behavioural science Organisers: Fiona Jordan & Arsham Nejad Kourki University of Bristol | 9 September 2020 There is fascinating research on the evolution of behaviour in many disciplines across the University of Bristol, particularly in biology and anthropology. We’re hosting a workshop to bring together postgraduate and postdoctoral … Read more

The Grandparent Naming Survey

Here at excd.lab we recently launched our Grandparent Naming Survey.  It’s being run by Jo Hickey-Hall, Research Support Assistant, as part of the Usage subproject for VariKin. VariKin-Usage specifically investigates how people use kinship language by using corpus linguistics, surveys, and interviews to quantify patterns of usage in spoken and written language. How frequently are kinship … Read more

2019 excd lab Review and Journal Round-Up

Each week, the excd lab take turns to offer journal articles for discussion, or even present our own research.   In 2019 Journal Club members enjoyed the company of regular guests Dr Dan Smith, Dr Kit Opie, Dr Catherine Sheard (Biology) and undergrad, Jasmine Calladine. We also welcomed new guests: Philosophy PhD students Shaun Stanley and Arsham Nejad Kourki, visiting Professor Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Anthropology PhD student Arif Jamal and Biology PhD … Read more

Postdoc position in cultural phylogenetics

Applications extended and closing May 22nd: please note extended project date to November 2020. We’re hiring! If you have skills in phylogenetic comparative methods, and you’re keen to understand cultural and linguistic diversity, then we have a one-year postdoc position on our VariKin project. Here’s the job ad: Applications are invited for a position of … Read more

VariKin on the radio

Fiona recently gave an overview of the VariKin project for CoastFM and SourceFM in Cornwall. She talked to Ben Makin on his Celebrity Science show about our three projects on kinship term evolution and the KinBank database, kinship language usage, and fieldwork on acquisition by children. The conversation ranged further into speculation on how the language … Read more