iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by @langywangy.bsky.social

Announcing the Linguistic Zine Challenge! Make or share a linguistics zine and tell us about it by the end of November, and you could win prizes! (oooh, prizes~~) Thread, or here's a link for the blog fans: lingthusiasm.com/post/8299478...

Linguistic Zine Challenge
Tell us your story about sharing your enthusiasm about linguistics with people through zines and win prizes! Make your own zine or share an existing linguistics zine and you could have your story featured on a Lingthusiasm bonus episode, win a pop linguistics book, win Lingthusiasm merch, or win a year of Patreon membership to Lingthusiasm bonus episodes!

Closes: end of day 30th November, 2026 (any time zones)

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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

If you've got some free time on your hands one of the best things you can do is to learn a language. It doesn't matter which language it is, learning any language makes the world a smaller place and brings you closer together with people you wouldn't otherwise speak to.

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Lara San Mamés @laratraduce.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Feliz día de la traducción, chiquis. Resistimos ✊🏻

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It is so good to see @reportermatt.bsky.social, who was in like 80% of my classes in college, become the most influential reporter in Massachusetts. He just loves the place, and you can tell in everything he does. A truly wonderful man making the whole state better.

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

every penny spent on LLMs should be spent instead on high quality professional human translation & interpreting work

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Alex Wenzel @alexwenzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“Office of Remigration” and “Office of Ethnic Cleansing” are synonyms. That’s not a rhetorical point, it’s a fact that everyone who used that word before this year would agree with.

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Dr. Stephanie @punkrockscience.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The fact that every major news outlet includes vocal tics and hesitations when it’s a woman saying “like” and not when it’s a man saying “um” is itself wicked telling.

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 20/09/2026

I have been reading the Anne McCaffrey Pern novels for the first time yeah I don't know why I hadn't read them before and I don't know why I'm inhaling them so fast now BUT importantly I know they're not trying to actually do linguistic worldbuilding but BOY do I have linguistics thoughts anyway

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alj8.bsky.social @alj8.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Hell simply isn’t hot enough

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 13/09/2026

tbh I’d have said this was most German words, which is why it’s German and not some other language

5 German words that don't exist in other
languages

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Gerald Roche @geraldroche.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Reactionary settler colonial discourse 101. It's from Canada, but uses identical tropes to Australian anti-language revitalization discourse.

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Scotty B @scottyb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

No one I know in real life, and almost no one I know online, is talking about the profound generational evil of flying people to torture prisons in countries they've never had a connection to and where they have no protections from the monsters who do this kind of thing.

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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.

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Iron Chef Bot @ironchefbot.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Frame #32950 from S03 -E06 - Suckling Pig-628418

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 31/08/2026

macabre = “muh-KAHB” Worcestershire = “WOOSS-ter-sheer” omnipotent = “ahm-NI-puh-tunt” reticent = “RET-uh-sunt” epitome = “ih-PIT-uh-mee” myriad = "MEER-ee-ud" Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

okay this one has some pretty good langywangy: A rural kid gets in trouble because of a courier message.

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

what's up with "destandardization" is this being theorized with a coherent definition or um... is it vibes?

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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

It’s not just the South: I was in speech therapy as a kid for having trouble with /ɹ/ and other consonants, and while they were in there they sanded down most of my Pittsburgh accent. I remember specifically them telling me not to pronounce “out” as [aːt]. It’s unfortunate

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Society for Linguistic Anthropology @soclinganth.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites applications for a tenure-track position at the level of Assistant Professor in Language and Wellbeing, expected to start on September 1, 2027. careers.umass.edu/jobs/assista...

careers.umass.edu

Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology - Amherst, Massachusetts, United States

Title: Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology Executive Area: Academic Affairs College/School/MBU: Social & Behavioral Sciences Department: Anthropology Work Location: Amherst Schedule: ...

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

language oppression, glottophobia, linguistic profiling... these all mean different things but come along on a little journey. we're gonna say they all fit in the umbrella of language standardization. ok? imposing uniformity through various kinds of pressure and violence, yeah?

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Bat 🦇 Borus @matthewborus.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

When we talk with one another, we’re not only exchanging information. We’re enacting and reaffirming our connections to one another, and demonstrating that we see each other’s humanity. A chatbot lacks all of that. And between parent and child, that sends a devastating message.

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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Patriotic English be like We must cast off the shackles of our Norman oppressors and start calling beef cow again and patriotic Britons are all like wtf man you came from Denmark!

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Bex @bexg93.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 17/08/2026

Bro he dropped the BENGALI version on Instagram today. What's he gonna do, make a Ukrainian video next?

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kobayashi ḫamṭu @mattboot.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

so these people are poking fun at the (English-influenced) retroflex "r" associated with certain speakers from Guaynabo, PR, and LOOK HOW THEY ARE SPELLING IT!

POV: la de Guaynabo y el iced coffee
180
Q
32
10
30
javieerpedro Follow
No sabía que la lavanda venía en syrup y de ahí .... screenshot of an instagram video of a guy doing his perception of a female guaynabo accent. not a very flattering still but my wife sent it to me since i don't have instagram so not much i can do about that. check out the video

*MOCAR
mocabelino787 19m
Hace tanta calörT. Sí, sé que es una flörT. Yo prefiero el café sin azúcärT.
Te
pasas.
La dicción guaynabeña debería ser estudiada en cada departamento de Lingüística de la isla.
Reply
See translation

pagingdralvarez •
3h
Sin azúcaRL pero con lavendeRL
Reply
See translation
javieerpedro 2h • Author
@pagingdralvarez Amooo amiguic
Reply
2

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Rory Blank @roryblank.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The phrase "woke 1" 1. sounds incredibly stupid 2. is always immediately used to cede ground to the far right to say "you’re right, we said a bunch of stupid bullshit that was embarrassing and we should be ashamed of it but we've changed" which just makes you look like an unreliable jackass

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Something is Being Born @nabelew.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Go check out @geraldroche.bsky.social's review of @sophiasgaler.bsky.social's "How to Kill a Language" for a surgical dissection of the history of language oppression denialism, clear and informed reminders of its political nature, and a buncha links to good research (incl. by @chirila.bsky.social):

theconversation.com

Languages are disappearing, and the problem is political

Language loss is often a reluctant choice made to escape violence, not a willing choice made to gain benefits.

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damniel spookradski @self.agency · 13/08/2026

“…we introduce the concept of glosslighting: the practice of using technically redefined terms to evoke intuitive—often anthropomorphic or misleading—associations while preserving plausible deniability through restricted technical definitions.”

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

Language Log

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Davis Bennett @davisvbennett.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I think they would agree in distinguishing all limbs on the left side (sinistrals) from the dextrals (limbs on the right side). I also think their language would basically be latin

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

An editor from the economist telling @olivia.science that nobody confidently understands the difference between the human cognitive capacity for language and a corpus. Idk about you, but to me (as a linguist and cognitive scientist) this is absolutely hilarious

Olivia Guest, quoting Dr Katie Twomey: exactly 💯 on LLMs: they simulate the output we call language, not the cognitive capacity we call language!

Followed by Economist Editor Matt Steinglass saying "I am not sure that I or anyone else confidently understands the difference between those."

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ashley (birthday month) 🕸️ @clearlyashley.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

as someone with two Nigerian middle names and a Nigerian last name I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHIT TURN IT UP

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

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aunty gormint, bro beeble 🍉 @pashamkhan.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Our Persian instructor Taraneh suggested that she would speak to me in Persian & I would speak to her in Urdu and we'd see what would happen. So this is what happened.

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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

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Endangered Languages Project @e-l-p.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

If you’ve seen this article, you may be sitting with anger, pain, or just exhaustion at dealing with another helping of colonial nonsense. We feel a responsibility to speak back when these colonizing narratives show up, yet again, in such a prominent venue. endangeredlanguages.com/story/respon...

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Rob Drummond @robdrummond.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Just came across this amazing documentary. Expect some more clips today!

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Ethan Kocak @ethankocak.com · 27/07/2026

Why wasn’t Odysseus accurately covered in feathers

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

the other thing about haley stevens: it is NOT WISE to say "here's her talking in 2023, she didn't have the accent." people speak many languages & change over time, it's fine. stevens MAY be duplicitous, but don't let be fooled. accents changing is not real evidence for someone being duplicitous.

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langywangy.bsky.social @langywangy.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

in the actual struggle against language standardization, we need something more muscular than "they make fun of how i talk and that's not okay." and what we need is not the old 'coastal elites' dogwhistle, and it's definitely not 'i am your voice' either.

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Alex West @ajw87.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I've been going through some old files. Java truly is a palaeographer's dream; there's so much interesting variation in the forms of written text from the island, especially before the sixteenth century

An image comparing 13 different forms of the aksara, or syllabic grapheme, "ma" in scripts from the Indo-Malaysian archipelago between the fourth and fifteenth centuries of the Common Era. The forms differ considerably. The first form, from Borneo in the fourth century, is an oval with two antennae. The final form, from Java in the middle of the fifteenth century, is a V-shaped blob with another blob placed into it. The two forms are very different but there is a family resemblance across the 13 shapes.

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

People are making fun of AOC for having a slight southern accent while speaking in Memphis but they clearly don’t know the pain of habitually and unconsciously imitating the speaking style of the people around you

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