18 May today, time for my yearly translation of a Joy Division song into Old Irish to honour the passing of Ian Curtis in 1980. This time: "Digital" (1978). These are rather abstract lyrics. There are multiple ways of reading the words in a way that have relevance today. @jd-central.bsky.social

Child language development expert here. No. The answer is absolutely not. So-called baby talk is culturally specific. Developing language is not. #linguistics

Are you interested in digital storytelling as a way to support and promote your language work? 💬 Applications are now open for a 6-week workshop with ELP and StoryCenter. No previous experience necessary! Learn more and apply by June 12 at www.surveyhero.com/c/elp-storyt...

I liked this poignant little Nabokovian hall of mirrors (and one of those rare books that’s about a linguist and doesn’t get linguistics totally wrong), but why did the acknowledgments have to thank Pinker and McWhorter as 2/3 of the linguists named 😩

Looking forward to this! Always a good time to learn more about Indigenous data sovereignty in the face of colonial-extractive AI.

a key take away from reading a lot of history for me: the people who survive hard times and eventually brutally humiliate their seemingly invincible enemies are not the people whose first response to adversity is “oh well, guess I’ll die”

the wish is self-fulfilling. in saying it, vance manifests a person speaking english in the united states! job done!

Whale Sculpture from the Chumash culture - 1200 to 600 BCE, California • look at his happy little face.....

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Join us Friday for the next "Stories from the Heart," and hear real-life stories of #languagerevitalization worldwide! Dr. Netra Mani Rai will share about his work to grow writing and speaking in Dumi, a critically endangered language in #Nepal. ⁠📚️ May 15, 5:45 pm Pacific bit.ly/stories-from...

i’ve just come back from 4 language revitalization conferences in 3 weeks and one takeaway I’m chewing on is that no one, from any country, identified working with state-level policymakers on language rights as a priority area Pretty much everyone framed gov/policy as something to evade and survive

HAPPY CLOTH MOTHER DAY - dashare.zone ADMIN

crow neighbors and i have been working on a game where they catch thrown kibbles out of the air one will leap like a goalie to catch it if my throw arc is off one is a big baby and will just come real close for an easy throw but they all seem to like it if I applaud their successful catches 😌

What do you do when the only records that remain of a language were made by someone who had absolutely horrendous views of the people who spoke it? In our latest episode we get enthusiastic about a crossover episode with Claire Aubin of @thisguysucked.com!

Starting on April 15, join us each month to hear real-life stories of language revitalization around the world! The first speaker will be Gibrilla Kamara, sharing about his work to revitalize Limba and Mani, and protect and restore forests, in Sierra Leone. 🌳 bit.ly/stories-from...

can’t stop thinking about how this is exactly what happened to canids after being domesticated. wolf will try and try, dog will just give up on a problem immediately if there’s a human around

"If I'm sick, I'm sick whether I believe it or not. My refusal to be persuaded will not keep me from sickness; it will only keep me from remedy. But I won't be able to make a choice about truth unless I hear it. "Fundamentally, healing involves confrontation." www.the-reframe.com/a-confrontat...

hey remember how a week ago we were all holding our breaths to see if a civilization would be annihilated and we’d all have to live whatever remained of our lives with the unbearable horror of not having prevented it anyway doordash grandma

We do now know the NSF is proceeding with dissolving the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division. Congress might reverse it, but it is now already underway. YOU CAN NO LONGER SUBMIT FUNDING PROPOSALS TO SBE. Program officers are being moved to different parts of the agency. Call your Congress member

ELP's spring 2026 newsletter is now available! Each quarter, we share news and inspiration in language revitalization around the world, upcoming events, jobs and funding opportunities, and more. Read the newsletter at: bit.ly/ELPspring26

as a southerner: this is the best holiday

New from 404 Media: the FBI was able to extract incoming Signal messages from a phone even though the app was deleted. Why? Because parts of messages were stored in the iPhone's internal notification database. Shows how secure chat data can come from unexpected places www.404media.co/fbi-extracts...

to all who celebrate...

“When the violence of one’s oppressor feels inevitable, when people don’t know how to stop what’s happening, the risk of moral surrender is real. Will we allow our sense of empathy to become dull and fade?”

One week from today! We hope you’ll join us to learn about some amazing language revitalization work in Sierra Leone:

For folks in Montreal, see you there?

"How does one hate a country, or love one?" Ursula Le Guin always out there expressing my exact feelings in trying times.

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN

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...

where is this guy, I just wanna talk

Did you miss ELP's fall 2025 Language Documentation Learning Series? Now you can catch up - all the recordings are up on YouTube! This free 8-week series covered introductory topics in language documentation, meant to help people document their own languages. Watch at: bit.ly/2025langdoc

A relevant CBC article that came out today: '"You could say that the AI is inadvertently colonizing and hurting Indigenous language revitalization because [people] are taking information generated by an artificial intelligence and putting it out there for people to read," said Sherbert.'

‘[She] said words in the Han Gwich’in language that essentially mean, “We’re not a threat to you. Have mercy on us and leave us alone.” Her grandmother and other elders always told her that animals understand the Native language. “I’m glad I remembered that and that I knew those words,” she said.’

Good text that should help many people understand that it is generally not a very good idea.

This was a difficult one to write, but with input from many smarter colleagues, I hope it offers some useful thoughts for anyone considering building LLMs or other AI tools for Indigenous languages.

One of every thousand American residents has been taken into custody by ICE in the last year.

Can confirm these sweatshirts are insanely cozy, really beautiful, AND support Indigenous language revitalization!

yay the indiscriminate chemical warfare being done to Portland neighborhoods is now MORE illegal ✨

Great story, with possibly the greatest author's disclosure of all time: "Disclosure: Prior to his election, the author was Councilor Green’s DM in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign."

It’s 2026. There is a measles outbreak in the prison for babies

People say we can't compare this to the Third Reich because of the atrocities but we only found out about the atrocities after the fact when it was all said and done and we're not done with this yet so I am sure the worst stomach churning shit has yet to be revealed.

Flood it. www.mcda.us/index.php/re...

Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they're doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps

Just experienced the most intense tear gassing of my life by federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland where marchers gathered. There was no fast exit as they indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs. Children were in the crowd screaming. @oregoncapitalchronicle.com

A Black-capped Chickadee showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory.

Every single person I've spoken to says ICE is still terrorizing, brutalizing, and abducting people at the same rate they were before Homan's little speech Falling for Rational Voice at a time like this is downright psychotic. Actions speak louder than words; words speak louder than tone

my guy was back out there doin Good Work with a broken rib from his previous encounter. name a fucking high school after him.

wait are there people who don’t use Signal for literally everything? why? I got all my septuagenarians on there easy