Sign in

David Eddyshaw

@tacitean.bsky.social
105 followers 30 following 397 posts
PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Having grown up in Wales, I can testify that if you are actually worried about your culture and history being under threat, the thing to do is write poetry and songs, perform plays, tell stories and organise festivals, not just sit around whining.
361217265
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The words for "blacksmith" and "work iron" are both reconstructable for proto-Oti-Volta. Dating of this is pretty much guesswork, but it can hardly be less than 3000 YBP. It's the ancestor of most languages of east/central Burkina Faso, and the northern parts of Ghana, Togo and Benin.
051
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I see that the late Tucker Child's Sherbro grammar has come out, too.
010
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Some 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 David Eddyshaw
Elisabeth J. Kerr @elisabethjkerr.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
On Tunen being an SOV language - heard a Tunen speaker bitch about someone who grew up in Yaoundé: "and when he speaks Tunen, he uses Subject-Verb-Object word order!! 🙄🙄"
191
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 05/10/2026
This is your occasional reminder that generative "AI" in particular could have been developed on public domain materials and/or licensed and compensated works but the major players intentionally, methodically and systemically chose to steal labor from working creative folks instead
10894872979
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Tfw you're looking for info on a small language of central Chad so remote all that's been published is short wordlists, and you find the speakers are putting up AI-generated tribal genealogy charts where the Arabic spellings contradict the Latin ones www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...
2112
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Shammai @shammaiintl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Try our new service, Shamm-AI. The only LLM that generates two answers per prompt and asks you to say which one is more helpful, but then vehemently disagrees with your choice and starts arguing with you about it
231959
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
In Volta-Congo it's ubiquitous, but it actually means either "meat" (specifically) or "bush animal" rather than "food" or "eat." Personally, I doubt that the Atlantic nyam-forms meaning "eat" are actually cognate. (Proto-Volta-Congo "eat" was pretty certainly something like *dɪ.)
040
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The Oti-Volta languages nearly all make their words for "right hand" from the root "eat", e.g. Mooré dɩ "eat", dɩtgo "right hand."
010
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
No mystery here. The Tories are delberately amping up the racist rhetoric because they are trying to get voters back from Reform. (It would be good if Blue Labour could be weaned off this strategy, too.)
020
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
A nice little Popperian moment today:) My analysis of Mubi verbs, based entirely on data from Jungraithmayr, predicted that verbs of the form BooCa and BeCDeF-e should be possible. J doesn't record any that I could find, but Prickett does, and they're conjugated exactly as expected.
0143
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Will Bennett @wmgbennett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Little known Snapple fact: Cajuns are not originally from Louisiana, and the clue is in the name. Cajun is a shortening of ‘Akkadian’, which reflects the group’s history of being forcibly resettled from Mesopotamia by the French after the fall of Sumeria. #cuneiformdelafayette
2103
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is a dreadful argument from Burnham. Empirically false - almost 6m people were granted settled status; about 4m are currently resident. More importantly panders to racism/xenophobia, and directly contradicts argument made in his speech about migrant contributions.
39349153
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There's a little case study in top-down lexical change for you...
072
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
*Sweden*, now. I like that alternative timeline. Swedish as the language of jazz and rock and roll and Hollywood.
010
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Cornubia est omnis divisa in partes tres.
010
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon. many more here: www.newscientist.com/author/tom-gauld/
Image: A graph with lots of red dots clustered together in a curve. The are all looking upwards at a single red dot wearing sunglasses. 

Caption: Mike was an outlier and would probably be excluded from the study, but all the other data points secretly thought he was really cool.
322929745
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A nice sketch of Hadza, a isolated language with clicks spoken in northern Tanzania journals.flvc.org/sal/article/...
journals.flvc.org
A sketch of Hadza grammar | Studies in African Linguistics
1178
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Johann-Mattis List @lingulist.de · 21/09/2026
First version of the newly created Database of Cross-Linguistic Partial Colexifications (CLIPS) has now been published online. Common work with Katja Bocklage, Thanasis Georgakopoulos, Robert Forkel, and myself clips.digling.org
Logo of the CLIPS database with a directed network combining three nodes.
167
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
The Onion @theonion.com · 18/09/2026
Trans Teen Hatches Nefarious Plot To Undergo Years Of Medical Treatments And Counseling To Win At Swimming theonion.com/trans-teen-hatches-nef…
Trans Teen Hatches Nefarious Plot To Undergo Years Of Medical Treatments And Counseling To Win At Swimming
66129192820
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
what if the rogue ai agent instigates a communist revolution
10273
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Benjamin Suchard @bnuyaminim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It's true, you can just say things
1101
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Benjamin Suchard @bnuyaminim.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
when the boss asks if you can copy out the whole scroll again but in Hieratic
14017
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
From which we conclude that Western Europeans have no culture ... (Though maybe it's just that the Chomskyan idea that language can be meaningfully studied entirely apart from culture never really caught on with *real* linguists.)
011
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Liberty @libertyhq.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The Govt’s current definition of terrorism is so wide-ranging it captures behaviour most people would never consider terrorism. When it’s not clear what counts as terrorism, public trust collapses and without trust, counter-terror laws simply won’t work.
04313
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Once again, he repeats the lie that he saved the Labour Party from "moral ruin." He's shameless.
010
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
An American abroad runs across an old friend he'd lost contact with, in an amusement park. They talk a bit about cuckoo clocks.
000
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
In Algeria, it's common wisdom that family names were (mis)assigned by the French colonial government specifically to break up larger families; almost every family has their own anecdote about this. Just finished reading Brower's _The Colonization of Names_, and it turns out this is correct.
28428
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Matriarchy Now @matriarchy.now · 30/08/2026
Did you know raising feminist boys is proven to reduce the overpopulation of mediocre men?
526437
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
lowkey that's everyone's first impression of americans
6413
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Journalists need to stop describing these incidents in terms implying software has agency and intent. It does not. The people who created a faulty and dangerous product are the ones responsible for whatever happens, and must be held to account, with punitive financial penalties for damage done.
401617601
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
"NHS Leaders" in fact means "NHS senior management." To say the least, it is not a given that they reflect the views of those who actually provide NHS care.
000
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
This is straightforward. Pearson and her fans don't think the policy should apply to "white" people, but even now are still afraid to come right out and say so.
000
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
LarryLegend @bwtrainer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
if someone tells you you don't need a union, you 100% need a union
13833263
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Sam Spinner @samspinner.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Homer was a chant bot whose epic language model was built from the uncredited work of thousands of bards.
13514
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Intenudas @izmarasan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Yesterday was the Ranar Hausa , the day of hausa language and culture . The hausa language is the most spoken language in west Africa .
093
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Andrew Fisher @fisherandrew79.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Damaging a golf course is not terrorism. We've lost the plot in this country www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Seven charged with damaging Trump’s Scottish golf course accused of ‘terrorist connection’
Course at Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort was painted with words ‘Gaza is not 4 sale’ and clubhouse was sprayed with graffiti
510339
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Apparently, Germaine Tillion wrote a note in Chaoui describing the person who had betrayed her Resistance cell to the Nazis and disguised it as part of her field notes. www.inumiden.com/germaine-til...
15016
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
roterote @roterote.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Here is the full suspension letter from UGent that was sent to Nathan Cofnas, it shows ample reason for his suspension and potential termination. Including breach of contract, using the University of Ghent’s name and legitimacy to promote his racial supremacist views and causing reputational damage.
7040651253
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Rae Radford @raeradford.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
See, you don't need to rush... #BookSky
752912519
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Cofnas' blogpost "Don't scapegoat women" is easily found online. His racism has been flagged up, rightly; this one lays out his misogyny, in his own words. It's almost touching in its straightforwardness. Young supports this too, of course.
010
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 21/08/2026
Well, well, well, I KNEW that the hounding of Arday was gonna get connected back to the TESCREAL bozos somehow. See this "paper" by the guy who hired Cofnas at Ghent University. Reminder "dysgenic" is the opposite of "eugenic," they mean Black people and other undesirables reproducing too much.
The dysgenics objection to longtermism
Bouke de Vries a,b,1
a Department of Philosophy, Ghent University, Belgium
b Department of Philosophy, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

A B S T R A C T
Strong longtermism maintains that how we should act morally is determined almost entirely by
the expected effects on the welfare of our descendants existing thousands if not millions of years
into the future, who might include both other humans and any artificial agents with a comparable
or higher moral status that we end up creating. It is based on three key assumptions: (i) that our
descendants will have a moral status that is at least as high as ours and therefore should not have
their welfare discounted by us; (ii) that there is a good chance that these individuals will vastly
outnumber us; and (iii) that we can do things here and now that can be expected to positively
shape the long-term trajectory of humanity. The aim of this contribution is to suggest that authors
such as Will MacAskill and Hilary Greaves have been too optimistic about all these assumptions as
a result of having ignored evidence that the populations of post-industrial countries are becoming
less intelligent due mostly to the negative relationship that has emerged within these societies
between intelligence and fertility and to the proclivity of intelligent people to delay parenthood.
13381152
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Sumita Pahwa @sumitapahwa.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
When I first moved to SoCal and took my child to the city library (as one does, first thing), this book title had me confused for several minutes.
19517119
David Eddyshaw @tacitean.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Caveman have just *one* preposition. It enough.
000
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
euobserver — EU news that matters @euobserver.com · 18/08/2026
"People with an Islamic background ... do not want an open, free European society," Frederiksen told MPs, in reaction to a humanitarian crisis in Morocco.
euobserver.com
Denmark’s ‘socialist’ leader is a race-baiting fake, not an EU model
"People with an Islamic background ... do not want an open, free European society," Frederiksen told MPs, in reaction to a humanitarian crisis in Morocco.
32316
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Robin Ince @robinince.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
So often what are called “culture wars” are one set of people saying “please can we live without perpetual persecution” and another saying “no, f*** you” but the press considering the latter group have “legitimate concerns” and must be perpetually platformed
402854859
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Maarten Kossmann @maartenkossmann.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Prefab Punic! I love it! (from Jongeling, handbook of Neo-Punic inscriptions, Hr. Maktar N 1, p. 91)
1409
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Tired of Sartre's cliché about how "Hell is other people"? Try this Kabyle proverb instead, which might be loosely rendered as: "To Hell with Paradise if I have to be all alone in it!"
33710
Reposted by David Eddyshaw
Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
your boyfriend? the one who thinks value is determined by marginal utility?
2383