Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoLameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Some reasons why you should read about Beja: - Uses more internal morphology than any other Cushitic language; - Earliest recorded Cushitic language (in an ostracon of ~6th c. AD) - Classification still controversial - is it really Cushitic, or a separate branch of Afroasiatic? 1178
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoSimon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026why are we still promoting open science, open data, and open code when ”open” now means “free food for the AI companies wrecking science, data, and code”? 262
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoTherfer @therferwarn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Open responses in JQL regarding the discussion paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1... I look forward to your thoughts! :-)tandfonline.comLarge Language Models and Quantitative Linguistics: Simulation within the Scientific Framework of LanguageQuantitative Linguistics (QL) has long sought to uncover universal patterns in language through mathematical modelling, establishing linguistic laws grounded in the scientific method. A core princi... 012
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancholaserhedvig @laserhedvig.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Interdisciplinary research is great and necessary, and also has consistently lower funding success www.nature.com/articles/nat... #academiclabourmarket #academia #research 26133
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoCat Hobaiter @nakedprimate.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Are you sitting comfortably…? TLDR: In which, gentle reader, we outline an idea on how language originated in fireside storytelling & make new predictions for studying the evolution of language.. 1/n 🔥🔥🔥 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...royalsocietypublishing.orgFirelight and the origins of spoken languageAbstract. Language and fire are hallmarks of the human condition, but most scholars treat them as independent traits. We develop a theory for the origin of 25020
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoComputational Linguistics @UPF @colt-upf.bsky.social · 26/05/2026Announcing our Trends in Language Evolution, Change, and Diversity workshop June 4th at UPF Poblenou! Featuring talks from Chiara Barbieri (Cagliari/Zürich), Gemma Boleda (ICREA/UPF), Karolina Grzech (UPF), Carmen Saldana (UB), Jamie D. Wright (Namur/Brussels) Sign up! www.upf.edu/web/colt/tre...upf.eduTRENCADIS Workshop - COLT: Computational Linguistics and Linguistic Theory - UPF 063
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoCat Hobaiter @nakedprimate.bsky.social · 26/05/2026Life in MoyenBafing gets pretty exciting for us too! Come help us learn about these incredible chimpanzees and the wonderful MB landscape they live in! RA positions in our field team from July, apply now! 🧪 03016
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho @rferrericancho.bsky.social · 01/02/2026Consider a noun phrase formed by a noun, an adjective, a numeral and a demonstrative. There are 24 possible orders but only some of them have been attested when examining the preferred order in world languages. Some researchers hypothesize that there is a hard constraint banning certain orders. 131
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho @rferrericancho.bsky.social · 22/01/2026Word order varies within languages but what are the actual constraints? Some word orders are never attested while others have a very low frequency. We could reason that word order diversity has a cost as morphological, lexical,... diversity has a cost in terms of learning, production and processing. 120
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-Canchoevolangconf.bsky.social @evolangconf.bsky.social · 07/08/2025Call for papers for Evolang 2026 is now posted! evolang2026.org. Workshop proposals due Sept 22nd. Paper submissions October 26th. Evolang is interdisciplinarity at its best. We hope to see you in Plovdiv!! 02214
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoTim Vernimmen @timvernimmen.bsky.social · 06/02/2025My latest story for National Geographic, about the similarities between whale song and human language, featuring @inbalarnon.bsky.social, @simonkirby.bsky.social, @ellengarland.bsky.social, @masonyoungblood.bsky.social and @rferrericancho.bsky.social!nationalgeographic.comWhat the science of baby-speak can tell us about whale songsA new study reveals that whale song and human languages share features that make them easier to learn. 1199
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoNatalia Levshina @natalialevshina.bsky.social · 13/01/2025A new preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... about one paradox in word order #typology. On the one hand, SOV has longer dependency distances and therefore higher processing costs than SVO (@rferrericancho.bsky.social, H.Liu, Futrell et al...)doi.orgOSF 1187
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho @rferrericancho.bsky.social · 03/12/2024A healing reading on the reality of the peer-review system (thank you Carles Sora-Domenjo for sending it to me). www.experimental-history.com/p/the-rise-a...experimental-history.comThe rise and fall of peer reviewWhy the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that's a great thing 011
Reposted by Ramon Ferrer-i-CanchoEmanuele Cozzo @ecozzo.bsky.social · 31/10/2024Not a big surprise, but we confirmed it: far-right parties cause bloc polarization masking other issues in multiparty systems electoral campaign arxiv.org/abs/2410.23177arxiv.orgFar-right party influence on polarization dynamics in electoral campaignPolitical polarization has attracted increasing attention in recent years, driven by the rise of social media and the global emergence of far-right populist movements. This study investigates the dyna... 052