Language Log

Taipei City Council forms Taiwanese Language Revitalization Caucus

Civic groups call for wider everyday use of Taiwanese

Keoni Everington, Taiwan News (5/6/26)

(in Mandarin)

statistics show that in 2020, 66.4% of people primarily used Mandarin, while 31.7% used Taiwanese as their main language, CNA reported. However, 54.3% reported using Taiwanese as a secondary language, indicating that many people have some ability in the language but lack an environment in which to use it.

• "Does the Brain Really Know What Word Is Coming Next?" Antonello, Richard J. eLife 15 (April 27, 2026): e111163. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.111163.

• "The Sound of Populism: Distinct Linguistic Features Across Populist Variants." Wang, Yu et al. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (April 27, 2026). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06799-8.

• "The Phonology of Sperm Whale Coda Vowels." Beguš, Gašper et al. Royal Society Proceedings B: Biological Sciences 293, no. 2069 (April 15, 2026): 20252994. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2994.

I was aware of this article nearly a week ago, but was too preoccupied with other matters to post on it till today.

French researcher cracks 4,000-year-old Elamite script from Iran
The 4,000-year-old Linear Elamite script from what is now Iran has long eluded archaeologists hoping to unlock the secrets of a near-forgotten age. French archaeologist François Desset's work on deciphering the writing system now has some comparing him to Jean-François Champollion, the famed philologist who deciphered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

By France 24 (28/04/2026) 

There was a proverb not so legibly tattooed on the back of a woman, but a couple of ChiLings worked it out, got a better picture, and gave the translation.

Carl Masthay, with the assistance of John Carlson and Harold Campbell.

一个叫KAHO的日本小姐姐模仿上海和潮汕口音，太好玩了。不但口音学得像，表情和面相都会跟着一起变😀 pic.twitter.com/Ye1IN9BVDK

— iPaul (@iPaulCanada) April 29, 2026

The speaker is a Japanese girl named Kaho.

This article by Niall Ferguson, "Texting Makes U Stupid" skipped my notice when it first appeared in Daily Beast (9/11/11).  I would have missed it again this time around had it not been called to my attention by Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.  Anyway, it's still a hot button issue, so better late than never.

Abstract

The good news is that today’s teenagers are avid readers and prolific writers. The bad news is that what they are reading and writing are text messages.

According to a survey carried out last year by Nielsen, Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 send and receive an average of 3,339 texts per month. Teenage girls send and receive more than 4,000.

It’s an unmissable trend. Even if you don’t have teenage kids, you’ll see other people’s offspring slouching around, eyes averted, tapping away, oblivious to their surroundings. Take a group of teenagers to see the seven wonders of the world. They’ll be texting all the way. Show a teenager Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi. You might get a cursory glance before a buzz signals the arrival of the latest SMS. Seconds before the earth is hit by a gigantic asteroid or engulfed by a super tsunami, millions of lithe young fingers will be typing the human race’s last inane words to itself:

‘Gilgamesh’ Review: Love and Death in Mesopotamia
The epic of Gilgamesh is more than 40 centuries old. Simon Armitage’s new translation feels thrillingly alive.
By William Giraldi, WSJApril 24, 2026

Much as I admire Simon Armitage's translation, I must say that I am overwhelmed by the excellence of the reviewer, William Giraldi.  He is much plauded for his fiction, literary criticism, and journalism.  Reading though this review, I often find myself celebrating his uncanny ability to find the mot juste at the very moment when I was wondering how he would extricate himself from a difficult, intricate sentence / thought.

There is something almost absurd about attempting to appraise “Gilgamesh,” as though one were asked to appraise wind, or love, or that first human thought that trembled toward language. And yet here comes Simon Armitage, the poet laureate of the U.K., with his stunning new verse translation, not as a vandal of antiquity but as a lucid accomplice to its endurance. As he does with his unimprovable versions of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (2008) and “The Death of King Arthur” (2012), Mr. Armitage understands that the oldest stories are never old, only waiting for a new singer.  

Below is a guest post/email by Preston C.:

I wanted to share a compact ambiguous sentence in the spirit of “Buffalo buffalo…,” but built from more ordinary English resources:

In Buttons’ Buttons, Buttons Buttons buttons Buttons Buttons’ buttons Buttons Buttons’ buttons’ buttons button.

One workable parse treats “Buttons Buttons” as a proper name, “Buttons’ Buttons” as a store, and button/buttons as verbs (“to fasten”). On that reading, the sentence means roughly:

In the store Buttons’ Buttons, Buttons Buttons fastens the buttons that his buttons’ buttons fasten.

Project Kino (3/23/26)