A Computational Linguist with HOPE

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In late February 2020, I found myself sitting at a table in the Interacting Minds Center with a diverse group of Aarhus University researchers discussing how to research the social and behavioural aspects of the emerging Covid-19 epidemic. The expertise of the other researchers spanned media and information studies, anthropology and ethnography, religious studies, political science, and computer science. I represented linguistics. At the time, Covid-19 had not (to our knowledge) reached Denmark, and it was still at least a week before the WHO would officially designate it a global pandemic. We suspected that this virus might have significant consequences for our lives, but we could never have imagined how much and how quickly.

Just weeks later, … ↪

Around the world on International Mother Language Day

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International Mother Language Day was celebrated for the first time in 2000 following the 1999 UNESCO initiative. The aim is to preserve cultural and linguistic diversity as well as multilingualism.

According to UNESCO, differences in language and culture must be maintained in order to promote tolerance and respect. Every mother tongue contains unique ways of thinking and expressing itself and provides access to the special culture and traditions of a language community. Every two weeks, a language and its cultural and intellectual heritage disappear, leaving at least 43% of the approx. 6-7000 languages ​​spoken in the world threatened. A similar proportion of people’s known possibilities for structuring their thoughts and their world are thus in danger, and if they disappear, … ↪

Book review: ‘European Language Matters’ by Peter Trudgill

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Skaermbillede 2022 01 30 kl. 18.34.12

There’s a particular experience that I have encountered many times during my life, and which you might recognise from your own, that I tend to think of as ‘the geographic eureka’. I’m walking in an area that I’m familiar with, and I decide to stray from the path I know in order to explore some road less travelled. I’ll walk around for a stretch of time, every turn or fork in the road leading me to new areas with varying degrees of interest, and eventually I turn the corner that, completely unexpectedly, puts me back on familiar territory; which is when the feeling hits me: “Oh, so that’s where I am!”. Peter Trudgill’s newest book, European Language Matters, consistently … ↪

Shaetlan. A contact language in the North Sea.

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Shetland is the northernmost part of the UK, an archipelago straddling the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east between Scotland, Norway and Faroe. The strategic location, smack in the middle of maritime trade and migration routes, means that the islands have been a place of contact for centuries, if not millennia.

Shetland has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years: the earliest evidence of human settlement in Shetland is the shell midden of West Voe dated 4200-3600 BC. These settlers were hunter-gatherers/fishers, but we don’t know when they came to Shetland or from where .

At some point around 3700-3600 BC we see evidence of a farming lifestyle in West Voe, for example that … ↪

Basque and gender: how a genderless language also suffers from gender inequality

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Basque, or euskara, is the official language of the Basque Country. It is a well-known language for nerdy linguists. You’ve probably heard it’s a language isolate with an unknown origin, that it has a weird word order, peculiar sounds, and no gender whatsoever. Some rumours are true, for instance that its weird order is that the verb always comes at the end, like: “the woman the book reads”. The statement about gender needs a little explanation. And since I’m a native Basque speaker who happens to be a linguist writing for this blog, let me offer that explanation.

 

Why Basque is so special

But first, please allow me to praise my mother tongue by briefly summarising and translating … ↪

Are the Nordic languages mutually understandable?

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Skaermbillede 2022 01 01 kl. 14.15.11

There is a common understanding outside the Nordic countries that Nordic people can all understand one another’s languages, or at least the Scandinavians (the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) can. However, this impression of linguistic unity is not wholly accurate.

Is there a ‘Scandinavian’ language?

People from outside the Nordics might be tempted to believe communication between Nordic speakers is effortless, and that their languages are mutually understandable. From a practical point of view, ‘Scandinavian’ was – and still is – used when many Danish, Norwegian and Swedish people communicate with one another. They primarily speak their own language, perhaps replacing some words, phrases, or pronouncing things slightly differently, depending on who they are talking to. In fact, in a paper … ↪

How do you define “samfundssind”? – A little questionnaire study

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Along with the word “hygge”, the Danish word “samfundssind” (roughly ‘community mindedness’) has recently become one of the few internationally known Danish words. The concept it stands for has achieved worldwide credit for the comparatively successful handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark.

The word was first introduced into the Danish language in 1936 by Thorvald Stauning (Danish Prime Minister 1924 – 1926 and 1929 – 1942) to urge the Danish people to solidarity in the difficult times around World War II. Since then, the word has been used, but without anyone paying too much attention to it (the online dictionary of The Danish Language Council ordnet.dk quotes, for example, a passage from the regional newspaper Fyens Stiftstidende from 2007: … ↪