Switzerite: And Language Too

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

And Language Too

Picking up where the post Artists Artists Artists left off, I also have a need for a place to put articles about Linguistics (which I did study in college).

While I was at Smith I even spent a summer helping my professor with her research. We made a video where I was dressed up as a mouse and came on the stage and hid my piece of cheese behind a box. Then I left and another student -- dressed up as a cat -- moved my cheese from where I had left it to behind a different box. Then she left. When I came back on stage, the professor would pause the video and she would ask the child watching, "where will the mouse look for her cheese?"

And then Jessica and I spent an entire summer watching video footage of where children looked in response to this question, freezing the tapes and entering data into a computer, so that my professor, Jill de Villiers, could write a paper called The Interface of Language and Theory of Mind.

Her article delves into what is also termed Psycholinguistics:

The Sentences Computers Can't Understand, But Humans Can

Linguistics is fun! I'm also really interested in attempts to save dying human languages, which are being overrun through global commerce, and whether animals have language.

Here are some articles from The New York Times:

An Indonesian Tribe’s Language Gets an Alphabet: Korea’s
Nov 4, 2024 - Cia-Cia, Buton Island, Indonesia

Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs
May 7, 2024

The Endangered Languages of New York
Feb 22, 2024

This Language Was Long Believed Extinct. Then One Man Spoke Up.
Jan 13, 2024 - Chaná, Argentina and Uruguay

Writing in an Endangered Language to Honor, and Challenge, Traditions
Jan 8, 2024 - Zoque, Mexico

A Patois Revival: Jamaica Weighs Language Change as Ties to Britain Fray
Oct 11, 2023

‘Our Language Is Dying’
Oct 4, 2023 - Gagauz, Moldova

The Animals Are Talking. What Does It Mean?
Sep 20, 2023

A Vanishing Nomadic Clan, With a Songlike Language All Their Own
Sep 19, 2023 - Punan Batu, Borneo

Brazil Found the Last Survivors of an Amazon Tribe. Now What?
Aug 19, 2023 - Piripkura, Amazon rainforest

Marie Wilcox, Who Saved Her Native Language From Extinction, Dies at 87
Oct 6, 2021 - Wukchumni, central California