Language Log

When I joined the Peace Corps in 1965-67 (Group Nepal VI), headquarters in Washington DC gave me two precious collections:  1. a box ("locker") of 250 books to read when I wasn't out trekking across the length and breadth of Bhojpur, the district in northeast Nepal where I was stationed by myself, 2. a medicine chest packed with over a hundred prescription drugs that kept me alive many a time.  The books were carefully chosen, and I churned through them omniverously.  I remember one in particular that had an enormous impact upon me, Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel), by Hermann Hesse (1877-1962).

Marc Andreessen's recent appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast presented a striking example of AI promotion (or AI hype, as you please). We can discuss his extraordinary claims and predictions another time. My topic this morning is something Andreessen does that AI still can't do, namely talk like a human being. I'm referring to the way that humans talk in spontaneous conversation, not in fluent reading or in well-rehearsed presentations, which AI text-to-speech can imitate increasingly well.

Elle Cordova's latest short:

Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom
Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

F. R. (Ruud) Van der Weel and Audrey L. H. Van der Meer
Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Front. Psychol., 25 January 2024 | Sec. Educational Psychology (Volume 14 – 2023) 

There must be a strong physiological bond / affinity between these two aspects of the senses, such that it seems as though you can't have one without the other.

Because of my two months of illness, I no longer have any appetite, not even for the things I used to love to eat — for example the exquisite carrot cake made by Pastry Pants Bakery in Swarthmore; a scrumptious piece of it has been sitting on my kitchen counter for two weeks.  In the past, I would have devoured it upon sight.

Never mind that the Manchus ruled China for 268 years (1644-1912), the last dynasty in the whole of Chinese history.  Now another ethnic group, the Han, are complaining that the Manchus were not Chinese after all.

What’s Driving Anti-Qing Sentiment in Contemporary China?

A patriotic film backfired because a growing number of Han Chinese don’t see the Manchu-origin Qing dynasty as a part of their history.
By Zhenlin Cui, The Diplomat (May 27, 2026)

Or maybe I should say, "AI prosody"?

In a series of posts over the past year, I've suggested that evaluation of reading performance ought to go beyond the question of whether individual words are correctly decoded and pronounced.

From a Medieval Latrine in Germany, Archaeologists Extracted a Pristine Leather Notebook That Preserved Latin Cursive for Centuries
The writing in the booklet suggests it belonged to an upper-class merchant, who may have had a mishap while using the toilet 800 years ago

Michele Debczak, Smithsonian magazine (May 20, 2026)  

Includes exquisite photographs of the wood and wax booklet bound in leather with floral embossing.

Archaeologists working for the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL) had a good feeling when they excavated five medieval latrines in the German city of Paderborn. Even so, what they uncovered from the dank chambers astonished them: an 800-year-old, pocket-size notebook containing ten pages in near-perfect condition.

Speech Prosody 2026 starts tomorrow, and I've been asked to present 5 minutes of welcoming remarks at the opening session.

My plan is to start with a quick reading of the abstract from my 2011 Henry Sweet lecture, "Towards the Golden Age of Speech and Language Science":

For the sciences of speech and language, the 21st century promises to bring the kind of progress that the 17th century brought to the physical sciences.

Our telescopes and microscopes, our alembics and Pneumatical Engines, are today's vast archives of digital text and speech, along with new analysis techniques and inexpensive networked computation.

However, the scientific use of these new instruments remains mainly exploratory and potential. There are several critical problems for which we have at best partial solutions; and like our 17th-century predecessors, we need to unlearn some old ideas on the way to learning new ones.

Focusing especially on Henry Sweet's own interests in phonetics and in the history of English, this talk will discuss some of the barriers to be overcome, present some successful examples, and speculate about future directions.

‘It’s broken English’: MP’s attempt to speak Jamaican in parliament sparks language row
Parliamentary rule that only English is allowed has reignited debate about language, legitimacy and postcolonial identity
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg in Kingston, The Guardian (5/21/26)

In this explosive exchange, you can hear the dramatic shift from "Patwa" (patois) to standard English in a 1:17 video included in The Guardian article.