The "handedness" of language: Directional symmetry breaking of sign usage in words

Language, which allows complex ideas to be communicated through symbolic sequences, is a characteristic feature of our species and manifested in a multitude of forms. Using large written corpora for many different languages and scripts, we show that the occurrence probability distributions of signs at the left and right ends of words have a distinct heterogeneous nature. Characterizing this asymmetry using quantitative inequality measures, viz. information entropy and the Gini index, we show that the beginning of a word is less restrictive in sign usage than the end. This property is not simply attributable to the use of common affixes as it is seen even when only word roots are considered. We use the existence of this asymmetry to infer the direction of writing in undeciphered inscriptions that agrees with the archaeological evidence. Unlike traditional investigations of phonotactic constraints which focus on language-specific patterns, our study reveals a property valid across languages and writing systems. As both language and writing are unique aspects of our species, this universal signature may reflect an innate feature of the human cognitive phenomenon.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures + Supplementary Information (15 pages, 8 figures), final corrected versio

Na nyingine kutoka nje ya Tanzania : Discussions of Tanzanian Sign Language within a demissionizing context

This paper undertakes an empirical investigation of lexical similarity and influence between Finnish Sign Language and Tanzanian Sign Language, situated within the context of demissionization and postcolonial theory. To date, no study along these lines has been undertaken, despite decades of history of Finnish missionaries and teachers in Deaf schools in Tanzania, accompanied by a longstanding record of educational and development support from Finland. By providing historical background information of the Tanzanian Deaf community and the development of Tanzanian Sign Language, this research further provides a contemporary overview of Tanzanian Sign Language. Over 900 lexical items from Tanzanian Sign Language were compared with signs with equivalent meanings in Finnish Sign Language to determine the extent of influence of Finnish Sign Language within the language. The signs were analyzed based on the Prosodic Model, comparing four main parameters: handshape, place of articulation, movement, and palm orientation. Signs were classified as either identical, similar, or different. This study provides African sign linguistics a space within the framework of postcolonial theories and decolonization

Typology of Signed Languages: Differentiation through Kinship Terminology

Nearly all such studies have sought to understand the linguistic constraints of spoken languages, while largely neglecting signed languages. Despite the fact that spoken languages can be classified into types, signed languages are generally assumed to be clustered all together in one type which the current study challenges. Exploring the potential for a varied typology among signed languages requires identifying patterns across a sampling of geographically distinct and historically unrelated signed languages to formulate linguistic generalizations. To that end this study adopts Greenbergs 1966 analysis of Universals of Kinship Terminology, it examines the linguistic patterns that emerge from a comparison of kinship terminology in 40 signed languages, specifying what patterns can be seen in visual-gestural languages. Findings of this study revealed that form-function mappings of specific semantic domains are constructed by different strategies including: iconicity motivated by universal human and cultural-specific traits, arbitrary elements, and linguistic economy (semantic derivation). Patterns reveal that kin terms are motivated yet contain degrees of arbitrariness, suggesting a continuum of interaction of arbitrariness and iconicity. While iconicity is undeniably pervasive in signed languages, salient properties manifested in signed kinship terminology are not universal, but instead reflect the cultural and cognitive perception experienced by deaf people within their linguistic communities. As a result iconic properties framed by language-specific and cultural specific mappings lend to variations in signs, describing the trend that signed forms\u27 phonological properties are not simply phonemic representations, but instead are phonological properties that inherently signify semantic properties. In turn, iconicity emerges as an undeniable and powerful tool of schematization used to form signs in a visual-spatial modality. Data showed some kin terms were motivated by patterns of specific semantic-phonological interdependency. These patterns identified occurrences of semantic derivation and semantic extension within language-specific sets of kin terms. Signed kin terms are formed by combinations of initialization, fingerspelling/character writing constructions, and iconic and arbitrary descriptions. However, organization of kin terms by linguistic processes may not parallel what Greenberg found in his study of spoken languages. The nature of modality clearly manifests in different ways of organizing signed languages and spoken languages; illustrated by how markedness manifests differently. The extent of linguistic phenomenon seen in the domain of kinship terminology underscores the importance of exploring semantics through studies of phonology, morphology, and grammar in signed languages. Typological analyses of signed languages contribute significantly to understanding what linguistic traits appear consistently through all languages, both spoken and signed, by revealing more about the effects of the modality-independent and modality-dependent behaviors of languages in defining language universals

Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture, Vol.10

Kontorslokaler nyttjas generellt cirka 2500 av årets 8760 timmar. Ett vanligt problem med kontorslokaler är det termiska klimatet, antingen är det för varmt, för kallt, eller så drar det. Höga temperaturer, över ca 26°C, bidrar till trötthet, nedsatt koncentration och gör att luften känns mindre fräsch. Stora variationen av lasten mellan dag och nattetid kan också resultera i att lokalerna överventileras under nattetid och underventileras under dagtid. Syftet med examensarbetet var att undersöka och jämföra Ecoclimes komforttaks lösning med andra olika värme och kylsystem i kontorslokaler. Att undersöka vilka eventuella fördelar Ecoclimes komforttak har gällande komfort, kyla, ventilation och ur energisynpunkt. Simuleringsprogrammet IDA ICE har använts för att simulera komforten och rumstemperaturer för ett kontor och ett konferensrum i en byggnad placerad i centrala Umeå. Resultaten från simuleringar indikerar att Ecoclimes komforttak, sänker den operativa temperaturen och höjer komforten med en mindre andel missnöjda i sitt rum jämfört med andra system trots samma rumstemperatur. För att bedömma andelen missnöjda i ett rum har komfortindexet PMV(Predicted mean vote) och PPD(Predicted percentage dissatisfied) använts. Den höga passiva effekten bidrar också till mindre energianvändning av ventilationsfläktar ifall ett VAV-system med rumstempertaurreglering används. Vidare har en känslighetsanalys genomförts på komforttaken där det undersöks hur kyleffekten påverkar kyltider, temperatur och komfort. Känslighetsanalysen visar att en ökning eller minskning av kyleffekten med 10% påverkar resultaten mest under en mycket varm dag jämfört med en normalvarm. Skillnaden i komfort var dock liten, endast 0,2 procentenheter från grundfallet

Seeing wake words: Audio-visual Keyword Spotting

The goal of this work is to automatically determine whether and when a word of interest is spoken by a talking face, with or without the audio. We propose a zero-shot method suitable for in the wild videos. Our key contributions are: (1) a novel convolutional architecture, KWS-Net, that uses a similarity map intermediate representation to separate the task into (i) sequence matching, and (ii) pattern detection, to decide whether the word is there and when; (2) we demonstrate that if audio is available, visual keyword spotting improves the performance both for a clean and noisy audio signal. Finally, (3) we show that our method generalises to other languages, specifically French and German, and achieves a comparable performance to English with less language specific data, by fine-tuning the network pre-trained on English. The method exceeds the performance of the previous state-of-the-art visual keyword spotting architecture when trained and tested on the same benchmark, and also that of a state-of-the-art lip reading method

CyberResearch on the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean

CyberResearch on the Ancient Near East and Neighboring Regions provides case studies on archaeology, objects, cuneiform texts, and online publishing, digital archiving, and preservation. Eleven chapters present a rich array of material, spanning the fifth through the first millennium BCE, from Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran. Customized cyber- and general glossaries support readers who lack either a technical background or familiarity with the ancient cultures. Edited by Vanessa Bigot Juloux, Amy Rebecca Gansell, and Alessandro Di Ludovico, this volume is dedicated to broadening the understanding and accessibility of digital humanities tools, methodologies, and results to Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Ultimately, this book provides a model for introducing cyber-studies to the mainstream of humanities research

Semantic Domains in Akkadian Text

The article examines the possibilities offered by language technology for analyzing semantic fields in Akkadian. The corpus of data for our research group is the existing electronic corpora, Open richly annotated cuneiform corpus (ORACC). In addition to more traditional Assyriological methods, the article explores two language technological methods: Pointwise mutual information (PMI) and Word2vec.Peer reviewe

Eurolanguages-2010: Innovations and Development

Збірник наукових студентських робіт по підсумкам 8 Міжнародної конференції "Євромови-2010