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John Mansfield

@johnbasil.bsky.social
668 followers 355 following 254 posts

my job is just LANGUAGING

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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Traditional extracurricular activities in France www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Hundreds detained as student protests across France turn violent
More than 400 detained as police and students clash over class sizes, exhausting timetables and staff shortages
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Mikkel Wallentin @mikkelwallentin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
New PhD-opportunity at Aarhus University with a project investigating the cognitive correlates of having no inner speech. Supervised by Johanne Nedergaard and yours truly. Deadline 11 November. Starting date 1 February 2027. Get in touch if you want to know more. phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/o...
phd.arts.au.dk
Individual differences in inner speech: Measurement and modelling (5+3), 2026-14
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Today in linguistics www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
AI models chatting in ‘surreal’ dialect mixing poetic language and tech bro jargon
Experts air concern over AI lingo redolent of James Joyce’s prose that is creating barriers to monitoring and oversight
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Meanwhile Australian govt maintains normal diplomatic relations with the ethnic cleansing regime, and some universities continue to collaborate www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing
In strongest condemnation ever by UK government, Ed Miliband announces sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Can’t overstate how much I hate these
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
If you like reading about very little-known languages, here are some notes on the Bneraf language, from the Tor family of NW Papua. See especially the verb inflection section! langwidj.org/preprints/Ma...
langwidj.org
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Liina Pylkkänen @liinapy.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Hi new PhDs! I'll soon advertise for a post-doc, but would be happy to receive informal inquiries immediately, as getting the official ad up will take a minute. Looking for strong computational & MEG analysis skills. Email me if this sounds like you and you'd like to join us! @snlmtg.bsky.social
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Being in Indonesia is like, I can't eat the sambal, but I can't not eat the sambal. I go through this every night.
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Village I’m currently working with needs a writing system, they want to use “h” for a weak schwa-like vowel, giving e.g. “athk” as disyllabic word. Seems like an unusual choice, but I guess ok?
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Berik (Tor Family, western Papua) has incredibly cool time and space inflection. gives us words like: tiel - “I came from the west ( a long time ago)” Pictured: Berik man, Hanok Borom
Berik man, Hanok Borom
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
video call with a Papuan friend: “Good morning brother, you look very beautiful.” YES this is how we should do conversation.
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Philip Laughlin @philiplaughlin.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
First up, REASONING WITH CONCEPTS: Conceptual Spaces as a Framework by Peter Gärdenfors and Matías Osta-Vélez, just published this spring. mitpress.mit.edu/978026205340...
mitpress.mit.edu
Reasoning with Concepts
Psychologists and philosophers have worked on topics such as category-based induction, nonmonotonic reasoning, analogies, and generics, but these problems ha...
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Sāmapriyavasuḣ @avzaagzonunaada.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Working with native Abkhaz speakers has so long been a dream of mine and I get to do this now. :) The most based interaction: Abkhaz granny: Are there Abkhaz speakers in India? Me: No. Abkhaz granny: Now there will be.
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
I'm really happy to see the Top End Language Statement is now released. Starting in 2022, people from 10+ different communities across the Top End, speaking a wide range of different languages, worked together to develop this statement. It's an impressive piece of coordinated language activism.
abc.net.au
Dozens of Aboriginal language custodians call for further revival efforts
Aboriginal language custodians release a road map for the survival and revival of Northern Territory Indigenous languages.
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Joumana Medlej @majnouna.com · 01/07/2026
A Very Cool Thing: Astrolabe from Seville, 1224 AD (Oxford HSM inv.50934). On the throne, at the top of the instrument, note the #geometry diagram: it shows the method for bisecting a segment, used here to draw the meridian line. The maker engraved it fully, offering us a glimpse into their process…
Brass astrolabe on a stand, with abjad numerals (Arabic letters used as numerals)Close up showing the diagram engraved on the throne
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Learning about Italian culture, aka how to use “cazzo” in a sentence.
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Imagine being a hagfish. It’s actually quite offensive
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I would have thought letting your dog lead the lab might fail the students in some ways, but maybe I’m old fashioned
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
peak fucking performance
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
“well it depends what the question is” Most evergreen academic reply I swear it works for everything
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
I would like to ask descriptive linguists not to use "marked" in a vague way. My supervisor Jane Simpson always got the red pen out for that, and I am now following in her footsteps.
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Stuart K Watson @chimpsahoi.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Coverage in the Guardian of our latest publication in Royal Society Open Science, with fantastic collaborators Alan McElligott (@amcell.bsky.social), Christian Nawroth (@goatswhostare.bsky.social), Federico Rossano and Simon Townsend. Paper threaded below! www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
Goats can find food by following a human voice, study finds
Experiments show 29 animals moved towards a treat-filled bucket 60% of the time when guided by a researcher
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Shameful that so many universities continue to normalise relations with the Israeli regime www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
theguardian.com
Video shows family’s car slowing before Israeli troops shot dead Palestinian baby
Footage appears to contradict Israeli military’s account of killing of seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal in West Bank
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Unnecessarily anti-Irish intro to Hamilton Walks
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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
🚨 New Publication Alert!🚨 Polysemy and metaphorical extension in an artificial language learning experiment (w/ @elizabethqingzhang.bsky.social & Marek Placiński). Out now in #OpenAcess in Language and Cognition. 🧵1/ #language #linguistics doi.org/10.1017/lang...
the title page
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
analysis of declining linguistics jobs in USA 😬
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
_Uniform Information Density_ _Working Memory chunking_ ... these seem related, both to do with unit size constraints Any work on this?
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
One of the main things keeping me going in life is that I really like breakfast.
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SNL Annual Meeting @snlmtg.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Don't miss the latest episode of @smwilson.bsky.social's Language Neuroscience Podcast with @rmc-law.bsky.social and @vborghesani.bsky.social teasing the program of #SNL2026! 🍏 open.spotify.com/episode/0zAE... 🍎 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
open.spotify.com
SNL 2026 teaser with Valentina Borghesani and Ryan Law
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Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
TWO great jobs in History and Philosophy of Science at Sydney! Rank from Lecturer (Assistant Prof) to Assoc Prof. Particularly interested in candidates working in the areas of early modern science, or science or medicine in Asia, or Indigenous knowledge systems... #HPS #STS #histstm #histsci
timeshighereducation.com
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor to the School of History and Philosophy of Science - Camperdown, Australia job with UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY | 410910
Build your research and apply your expertise by contributing as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor to the School of History and Philos...
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
"auf" is the most difficult morpheme in German
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
New preprint by Charles Kemp and myself, comparing quantitative frameworks that seek to measure the functional optimality of languages. osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
A new version (2.0) of Frank Seifart's Affix Borrowing database, now co-authored with Francesco Gardani: afbo.info
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Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Version 1.0 of the Grammaticon is now online! This has been in the making for over eight years. Quite a few of the entries are still preliminary, but I hope to expand and improve it over the coming months and years. Comments are welcome! An intro text is here: dlc.hypotheses.org/4316
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Piers Kelly @pierskelly.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
"The origins and evolution of writing: A very brief synthesis" at Cambridge 16:30, 20th May. Zoom in, if you're in a compatible time zone!
Flyer:
20th May: Piers Kelly (in-person/hybrid) "The origins and evolution of writing: a very brief synthesis
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
has anybody looked at Spain? (research idea)
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Valentina Borghesani @vborghesani.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The Department of Basic Neurosciences of UNIGE and the @nccrlanguage.bsky.social are looking for an Assistant Professor with Tenure Track or Associate Professor in Computational Neuroscience. Full details: jobs.unige.ch/www/wd_porta... #neurojob #academicjob #compneuro
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Christian DiCanio @cdicanio.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
I’m going to put this out there - I have some funds to run lab experiments involving prosody and segmental articulation. I’m happy to collaborate with people who want to do this work but don’t have much funding, especially given the federal funding catastrophe. #linguistics
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
I'm hiring! 2 x postdocs in Cognitive Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics, to work on the cultural history of Australia and Papua. More details in link below, and please do repost or share elsewhere! www.isle.uzh.ch/en/jobs/post...
isle.uzh.ch
Postdoctoral Researchers (x2) in Cognitive Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics
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kobayashi ḫamṭu @mattboot.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
holy shit
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Didn’t finish reading this, any tldr? 😀
Article, no one knows what attention is
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Anybody get special sources for PDFs of minority langs of Indonesia?? esp Sumbawa, Osing
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Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science bot @oecs-bot.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Bodily Sensations by null: doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.3d8f2887
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John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
I tried making a joke to the Swiss parking inspector, „Es gibt auch Regeln für Gandalf“. This did not go well.
Van labelled „Gandalf“
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
While cruelty has always been the point of Trump's whole Administration, nothing highlights that more than dropping a nearly blind elderly man 5 miles from nowhere in freezing weather so that he die alone, afraid, and abandoned. This is Trump's America. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Nearly blind refugee abandoned by US border patrol found dead in Buffalo
Investigation under way after man was dropped off five miles from home but family wasn’t notified, officials say
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