For decades, linguists assumed kids drive language change through ‘imperfect’ learning. New research by Raviv, Blasi & Kempe (Psychological Review) show that instead, adolescents and young adults are more likely to spread, normalize, and cement linguistic shifts. www.mpi.nl/news/young-c...

Read more here: www.mpi.nl/news/young-c...

💡 The idea that children drive language change is widely accepted — but does it hold up? New research co-authored by Dr Vera Kempe challenges this view, showing little evidence that child-led innovations spread through communities. Read more: www.mpi.nl/publications...

Super proud of this work and very grateful for all the amazing people who provided valuable feedback along the way @remivantrijp.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @cedricboeckx.bsky.social @inbalarnon.bsky.social ❤️❤️❤️🙏

The de-neonatizing of linguistics takes another step forward

So rewarding to work with these two brilliant people to check whether the existing evidence supports the persistent claim that children's simplifying errors drive language change. It doesn't. psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d... @limorraviv.bsky.social @damianblasi.bsky.social

Children are not the main agents of language change. New paper by @limorraviv.bsky.social @damianblasi.bsky.social & @vkempe.bsky.social. psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/... www.mpi.nl/publications...

New paper with the brilliant @vkempe.bsky.social looking at potential age differences in the interpretation and conventionalization of a recently introduced semiotic system: emojis! 😍 Unlike popular belief, we see that young & older folks mostly agree on what face emojis mean (with some exceptions)!

No evidence for generational differences in the conventionalisation of face emojis. New paper by Kempe and @limorraviv.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

I'm teaching a grad seminar this Fall on the Cognitive Science of LLMs focusing on how they can act to stress test cognitive theories. If you have any readings that scream *yes this one!!* please send them my way!

Based on the thesis of my brilliant student Lucia from @ccniuofg.bsky.social @uofglasgow.bsky.social, we see that gendered language (Italian) can be a painful source of non affirmation for non binary people. We also make some suggestions for how to improve their experiences and create safer spaces 🙏

The inescapable cage of a man and a woman: Experiences of non-binary people with gender identity (non-)affirmation in the context of a gendered language. New paper by Feketova and @limorraviv.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/2689....

Call 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!!

This sounds like a really cool project! If only I had the required experience I would jump at it 🤩

A not to be missed opportunity.

My first ever book cover! Made with maths, pencil, drawing robot, and photographic negative. Thank you @limorraviv.bsky.social and @cedricboeckx.bsky.social for asking me to do it, and for the lovely handwritten dedication inside 😊

I am advertising 2 positions in language evolution with my group at ‪‪@dondersinst.bsky.social: 📢 Fully-funded PhD position (Robotics/AI 🤖) www.ru.nl/en/working-a... 📢 Postdoc position (Virtual Reality 🎮) www.ru.nl/en/working-a... Deadline for applications is August 14th. Please RT! :)

It's out! 🎉 Together with @maelmleroux.bsky.social , @chimpsahoi.bsky.social, and S. Townsend, we wrote a chapter on methods for studying animal sequences. Huge thanks to @limorraviv.bsky.social and @cedricboeckx.bsky.social for editing this amazing volume! academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

Special thanks to @simonkirby.bsky.social for designing a superb cover for the handbook. Simon’s work has inspired Limor and me a great deal, and it meant a lot to us to involve him in this volume

The volume consists of over 30 chapters, and features over twice as many contributors. It is supremely inter-disciplinary. Huge thanks to each and everyone of them for making this possible 🙏

Reading through the chapters made me wish I had had such a volume when I entered the field.

we also restricted our attention on those that are empirically tractable (sorry to the ‘Chomskyan’ linguists if they feel left out)

We put together this volume hoping that it would help newcomers in the field assess their analytical options. We crucially did not try to illustrate all the interesting hypotheses regarding how human language evolved (that would require more than one volume),

we also commissioned multiple chapters offering complementary methods for particularly controversial or complex topics, so readers can weigh the pros and cons of each

We tried to do justice to the many facets of the field (if you think we failed to represent an approach, drop us a line; we really thought hard about this, but it’s a fast-changing field)

We are so grateful to everyone for sticking to the plan and delivering chapters that, while not boringly uniform, all have the same shape: If this is the specific problem concerning language evolution you are interested in, here is how to test your hypothesis experimentally.

We managed to convince a stellar cast of both leading figures and rising stars in the field to team up and spell out which specific experimental method could shed light on specific questions regarding language evolution 🧪

New handbook alert on approaches to language evolution 🚩🚩 See thread below! Huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this fantastic endeavor, and most importantly to my amazing co-editor @cedricboeckx.bsky.social who made this all possible 👏👏

Language depends on copying (e.g. of words, signs). And language in turn is needed for many other things. When and why did our ancestors gain this ability to copy? Our (Ron, Elisa & me) archaeological reanalysis says: in the last million years. Just out: dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...

🚨New publication alert! "Corpus-based approaches to evolutionary dynamics in language" (w/ @stefanhartmann.bsky.social) out now in the in the Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution. Kudos to @limorraviv.bsky.social & @cedricboeckx.bsky.social for putting this great volume together!

#linguistics I'm looking for recent meta analyses in experimental linguistics that explicitly show publication bias. Please share your work here!

Interested in the evolution of human language and in understanding the pressures that shape languages today? Come do a PhD with me! Fully funded PhD position available in my group @mpi-nl.bsky.social, application deadline June 2nd: www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

Cool postdoc position in language evolution in Toruń www.umk.pl/en/jobs/?tas...

A bidirectional association between language development and prosocial behaviour in childhood: Evidence from a longitudinal birth cohort in the United Kingdom. Final version by Dimitris I. Tsomokos & @limorraviv.bsky.social doi.org/10.1037/dev0001875 Paper: tinyurl.com/yha38k5h

We uncovered the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language in whale song, published today in Science. @inbalarnon.bsky.social @simonkirby.bsky.social @jennyallen13.bsky.social @clairenea.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Do whales optimize their vocalizations for efficiency, just like human language? 🐋🎶 My latest study in Science Advances (@science.org) suggests they do—following linguistic laws seen in human speech. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"Methods based on infant speech segmentation, applied to 8 years of humpback recordings, uncovered in whale song the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language." Cool new paper by @inbalarnon.bsky.social, @simonkirby.bsky.social, @ellengarland.bsky.social out in @science.org. 🧪

SO very excited about new paper with @simonkirby.bsky.social and @ellengarland.bsky.social: We used infant-inspired tools to analyze eight years of humpback whale song, finding recurring parts with a Zipfian frequency distribution. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Conference "Emerging Topics in Typology", Leipzig, June 3-5 (deadline for abstracts: January 31st) www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-a...

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

Summer School in Robotics! Edinburgh, 2-6 June 2025. Topics: generative AI for robotics, bioinspired robotics, HRI, verification and safety #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML#PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social ukrss.site.hw.ac.uk

How do we understand each other in conversation? A thread based on my recent IACS4 plenary, covering a critical perspective on interactive linguistic alignment - the tendency to re-use each other's linguistic forms. 1/

Words for emotions are differently connected in human groups from various regions and language families. Emotion experiences may vary across cultures. Analyzing the diverse ways that people use language can yield insights into human cognition. An interesting read! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New year, new paper recording ✨ Here's our 2024 Behaviour paper "Successful adoption of non-orphaned infant by a parous, nursing female in yaki" 🐒 with @chimpanzeve.bsky.social et al. youtu.be/2_hu2sp33GI

Hi BlueSky! Check out our new paper on mouthing patterns in the bimodal multilingual deaf community of Kufr Qassem www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

In this #AbralinTalk, Caroline Rowland (@carorowland.bsky.social) discusses how children learn language, focusing on universal patterns, cultural variation, and implications for education. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7deA... #langsky #linguistics

Striking images can make scientific ideas accessible to people from all walks of life. But some such pictures do more damage than good, seeding confusion & fueling widespread misconceptions of an essential topic. To illustrate, a thread about two iconic images & (mis)understanding evolution. 1/9

Deep neural networks and humans both benefit from compositional language structure. New paper by @lukasgalke.bsky.social, Yoav Ram, and @limorraviv.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1038/s414....

🔥 Now finally out in Nature Communications: Deep neural networks and humans both benefit from compositional structure with Yoav Ram and @limorraviv.bsky.social Paper link right away: rdcu.be/d5f2e 🧵⬇️

New paper alert! 🚩🚩 Deep learning agents (RNNs and LLMs) show the same learnablility bias reported in humans, where more structured and compositional languages are easier to learn and lead to better (and more human-like!) generalizations. Read more here 👇👇🤩