Recent language sciences references
« previous post | next post »
Because there are so many excellent entries of interest to Language Log readers in various fields, I am including all of those in this extensive list;
- "Genetic History of Scythia." Andreeva, Tatiana V. et al. Science Advances 11, no. 30 (July 25, 2025): eads8179. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads8179. Updated 27 March 2026.
- "Decoding Parrot Duets: Complex Communication in Yellow-Naped Amazons." Dahlin, Christine R. et al. Journal of Avian Biology 2026, no. 1 (February 12, 2026): e03552. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jav.03552.
- "The Dual Formative *tsi in Tibeto-Burman Languages." DeLancey, Scott. Himalayan Linguistics 25, no. 1 (March 3, 2026). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92z910mm.
- "Lexical Richness in the Speech of Mandarin Chinese for L2 Learners." Hao, Yuxin et al. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 13, no. 1 (April 9, 2026): 437. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06566-9.
- "Biomechanics and Evolution of the Primate Tongue." Sekhavati, Yeganeh et al. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 35, no. 2 (April 2, 2026): e70026. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/evan.70026.
- "One Test, Many Tongues: Surveying Language Proficiency across the Globe." Van Rijn, Pol et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123, no. 13 (March 27, 2026): e2420179123. https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2420179123.
- "Enduring Constraints on Grammar Revealed by Bayesian Spatiophylogenetic Analyses." Verkerk, Annemarie et al. Nature Human Behaviour 10, no. 1 (November 17, 2025): 126-136. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02325-z.
- "Social Perception of Creaky Voice in Mandarin Chinese: Everyone's Gender Matters." Yao, Yao et al. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (March 27, 2026). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-07108-z.
[Thanks to:
Edward M "Ted" McClure, Librarian
https://patreon.com/Bluehorse887
https://researchbuzz.masto.host/@Bluehorse ]
Chris Button said,
April 13, 2026 @ 2:23 pm
I wonder how the creaky voice experiments would fare on a language that uses a "creaky" lexical tone.
David Marjanović said,
April 14, 2026 @ 6:02 am
Let alone one that distinguishes plain and creaky vowels independent of tone (and length); there are some in and around northern Ghana for example.
Chris Button said,
April 14, 2026 @ 7:04 am
I actually don't think it matters to my question whether the creaky voice is considered phonologically as a kind of "tone", or whether it is considered phonologically independent of "tone", or whether it is part of the phonetic realization of one or more tones.
I was just curious how the experiment might have fared under any such circumstances.
Jonathan Smith said,
April 14, 2026 @ 11:34 am
Creaky voice *is* associated with tone in Mandarin, specifically being a common non-contrastive feature of Tone 3. The authors note this. Their "creaky" vs. "modal" data are synthesized, not natural. So IDK about this study.
Chris Button said,
April 14, 2026 @ 2:51 pm
Good point about the phonetic creakiness that can accompany mandarin 3rd tone. But it is indeed non-contrastive and acoustically comparable to a continuation fall-rise in English, which one wouldn't normally talk about in terms of creaky voice. So, I suppose the study (which I have not read) could still be viable.
M. Paul Shore said,
April 15, 2026 @ 11:41 am
If this isn’t too irreverent, I’d like to submit the following Higgledy-Piggledy poem inspired by the seventh-listed article, obeying the classic Hecht/Pascal rules except that, instead of the second line of the second stanza being solely occupied by one eight-syllable word, I’ve spread a two-word sixteen-syllable term from the first to the third line.
Higgledy-piggledy,
Frau Prof. Verkerk et al.,
Plumbing the topic of
Grammar constraint,
Wielding their spatio-
phylogenetic a-
nalyses deftly, where
Others might faint.
M. Paul Shore said,
April 15, 2026 @ 11:54 am
Sorry, I should’ve said “ instead of the second line of the second stanza being solely occupied by one six-syllable word, I’ve spread a two-word twelve-syllable term from the first to the third line”.
Philip Taylor said,
April 19, 2026 @ 2:34 am
[Coming to this late, as I've been away] — love the poem, MPS : well done !
HS said,
April 22, 2026 @ 8:21 pm
Higgledy Piggledy,
biomechanical
investigations of
primatic tongues,
found in a journal of
anthropological
news and reviews (but no
mention of lungs?)
M. Paul Shore said,
April 23, 2026 @ 12:31 pm
Higgledy-piggledy,
Christine R. Dahlin: Her
Yellow-naped amazons—
Wild ones, not pets—
Yield up their mysteries
Psittacological
As she observes their
Dynamic duets.
HS said,
April 23, 2026 @ 7:04 pm
Higgledy-Piggledy,
Science Advances: a
study of gene structures
near the Black Sea,
looks at the make-up of
Scytho-Siberians,
West Asian nomads, five
hundred BC.
M. Paul Shore said,
April 24, 2026 @ 1:04 am
Higgledy-piggledy,
Yao Yao (not Yao Yaoyao),
Leading a study of
Mandarin creak,
Searching for gender-based
Indexicality,
Seeing if fry makes you
Young or antique.
HS said,
April 25, 2026 @ 9:14 pm
Higgledy-piggledy
Hao et al. study the
lexical richness of
L2 Chinese,
testing the value and
applicability
of English measures and
test indices.
M. Paul Shore said,
April 26, 2026 @ 1:44 am
Higgledy-piggledy,
Rare Scott DeLancey, like
Jonson, his brilliance with
Words flowing free,
Lays out the plentiful
Comparativity
Evidencing dual
Formative *tsi.
HS said,
April 27, 2026 @ 10:15 pm
Looks like we're down to the lucky last. It's been fun.
Higgledy-piggledy,
Rijn et al.*, surveying
language proficiency
across the globe,
devise a test of the
size of one's vocab – a
multi-linguistical
cross-country probe.
[ * Mystery-twistery:
Does one say "JACK-oh-bee"?
Or just "Juh-KOH-bee"? – I
don't really know!
This causes chaos and
non-scannability,
listing four** authors all
in the same row! ]
**Actually eight, plus an editor! Has Languagelog ever covered the issue of academic author inflation?
M. Paul Shore said,
April 28, 2026 @ 4:46 am
In fairness to the eight authors plus editor, their project was clearly an exceptionally large one. I submit the following tribute:
Higgledy-piggledy,
André, Jacoby, Sun,
Lee, Lanzarini, first-
listed van Rijn [which I’ll here give the Dutch-approximate pronunciation [reɪn]],
J. Pennebaker, Mar-
jieh, Sucholutsky, all
Working together to
Lessen the strain!
HS said,
April 29, 2026 @ 6:04 pm
Very good – I'm impressed. But now try it with the 21 authors listed for the paper on the Genetic History of Scythia. I'm not any kind of academic and I don't know what the normal protocol for the inclusion of a name on an academic paper would be, but having 21 named authors strikes me as being very unwieldy at the very least. (Though in saying that I don't mean to downplay the contribution of any of the authors – it's clearly a major study.)
M. Paul Shore said,
April 30, 2026 @ 1:28 am
I think it’d actually be fairly easy and fun to do—with extra stanzas, of course—because all those Russian names seem to fit nicely into the poem’s rhythm. If I were to actually do it, I’d have to be sure I had the syllable stresses correct, using the short cut of asking my Russian-expert cousin.
HS said,
April 30, 2026 @ 11:24 pm
But if you added more stanzas it wouldn't be a Higgledy-Piggledy! It would be like adding more lines to a limerick!
But really my comment was more about what struck me as an excessive number of authors listed for a single research paper. I'm not an academic and don't know what the rules or guidelines are, but my impression is that most papers have no more than five or six listed authors, though obviously it will depend upon how many people actually contribute in a significant way. (Though the cynic in me can't help thinking that the more papers one is listed as an author of, the better it will be for one's career…)
However, a little bit of googling suggests that 21 authors is hardly excessive….
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.17567
And here's a paper which looks at some of the trends over time, at least in the field of applied ecology:
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.13040 (which, naturally, has eight listed authors…)