Emergence of linguistic laws in human voice

Linguistic laws constitute one of the quantitative cornerstones of modern cognitive sciences and have been routinely investigated in written corpora, or in the equivalent transcription of oral corpora. This means that inferences of statistical patterns of language in acoustics are biased by the arbitrary, language-dependent segmentation of the signal, and virtually precludes the possibility of making comparative studies between human voice and other animal communication systems. Here we bridge this gap by proposing a method that allows to measure such patterns in acoustic signals of arbitrary origin, without needs to have access to the language corpus underneath. The method has been applied to sixteen different human languages, recovering successfully some well-known laws of human communication at timescales even below the phoneme and finding yet another link between complexity and criticality in a biological system. These methods further pave the way for new comparative studies in animal communication or the analysis of signals of unknown code.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Emergence of linguistic laws in human voice

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Testing the robustness of laws of polysemy and brevity versus frequency

The pioneering research of G.K. Zipf on the relationship between word frequency and other word features led to the formulation of various linguistic laws. Here we focus on a couple of them: the meaning-frequency law, i.e. the tendency of more frequent words to be more polysemous, and the law of abbreviation, i.e. the tendency of more frequent words to be shorter. Here we evaluate the robustness of these laws in contexts where they have not been explored yet to our knowledge. The recovery of the laws again in new conditions provides support for the hypothesis that they originate from abstract mechanisms.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

In the Beginning Was the Verb: The Emergence and Evolution of Language Problem in the Light of the Big Bang Epistemological Paradigm.

The enigma of the Emergence of Natural Languages, coupled or not with the closely related problem of their Evolution is perceived today as one of the most important scientific problems. \ud The purpose of the present study is actually to outline such a solution to our problem which is epistemologically consonant with the Big Bang solution of the problem of the Emergence of the Universe}. Such an outline, however, becomes articulable, understandable, and workable only in a drastically extended epistemic and scientific oecumene, where known and habitual approaches to the problem, both theoretical and experimental, become distant, isolated, even if to some degree still hospitable conceptual and methodological islands. \ud The guiding light of our inquiry will be Eugene Paul Wigner's metaphor of ``the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences'', i.e., the steadily evolving before our eyes, since at least XVIIth century, \ud ``the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics''. Kurt Goedel's incompleteness and undecidability theory will be our guardian discerner against logical fallacies of otherwise apparently plausible explanations. \ud John Bell's ``unspeakableness'' and the commonplace counterintuitive character of quantum phenomena will be our encouragers. And the radical novelty of the introduced here and adapted to our purposes Big Bang epistemological paradigm will be an appropriate, even if probably shocking response to our equally shocking discovery in the oldest among well preserved linguistic fossils of perfect mathematical structures outdoing the best artifactual Assemblers

Polysemy and brevity versus frequency in language

The pioneering research of G. K. Zipf on the relationship between word frequency and other word features led to the formulation of various linguistic laws. The most popular is Zipf's law for word frequencies. Here we focus on two laws that have been studied less intensively: the meaning-frequency law, i.e. the tendency of more frequent words to be more polysemous, and the law of abbreviation, i.e. the tendency of more frequent words to be shorter. In a previous work, we tested the robustness of these Zipfian laws for English, roughly measuring word length in number of characters and distinguishing adult from child speech. In the present article, we extend our study to other languages (Dutch and Spanish) and introduce two additional measures of length: syllabic length and phonemic length. Our correlation analysis indicates that both the meaning-frequency law and the law of abbreviation hold overall in all the analyzed languages

Exit and voice revisited: the challenge of migrant media

This paper discusses the implications of transnational media production and diasporic networks for the cultural politics of migrant minorities. How are fields of cultural politics transformed if Hirschmann’s famous options ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ are no longer constituting mutually exclusive responses to dissent within a nation-state, but modes of action that can combine and build upon each other in the context of migration and diasporic media activism? Two case studies are discussed in more detail, relating to Alevi amateur television production in Germany and to a Kurdish satellite television station that reaches out to a diaspora across Europe and the Middle East. Keywords: migrant media, transnationalism, Alevis, Kurds, Turkey, German

Orientalism and the puzzle of the Aryan invasion theory

The origin of the Aryan invasion theory (AIT) is generally located in the discovery of the Indo-European and Dravidian language families. However, these discoveries cannot account for the emergence of the AIT, because the postulation of the invasion preceded the linguistic research. In its search for an alternative account of the cognitive conditions under which this theory could come into being, this article illustrates a particular way of studying the intellectual history of Orientalism. The Orientalist discourse on India is approached as a body of reflections on the western cultural experience of India. This perspective brings us to the thesis that the pre-conditions for the emergence of the AIT lay in the postulation of two entities in the Orientalist discourse on India: the ‘Hindu religion’ and its ‘caste system’. Both these notions and the AIT appeared cogent and coherent to European minds, because they mirrored internal developments within European culture and its intellectual debates, which had given shape to Europe’s experience of India

Bonds and bridges : social and poverty

Using the lens of social capital-especially bridging or cross-cutting ties that cut across social groups and between social groups and government-provides new insights into policy design. Solidarity within social groups creates ties (bonding social capital) that bring people and resources together. In unequal societies, ties that cut across groups (bridging social capital) are essential for social cohesion and for poverty reduction. The nature of interaction between state and society is characterized as complementarity and substitution. When states are functional, the informal and formal work well together-for example, government support or community-based development. When states become dysfunctional, the informal institutions become a substitute and are reduced to serving a defensive or survival function. To move toward economic and social well-being, states must support inclusive development. Investments in the organizational capacity of the poor are critical. Interventions are also required to foster bridging ties across social groups-ethnic, religious, caste, or racial groups. Such interventions can stem from the state, private sector, or civil society and include: Changes in rules to include groups previously excluded from formal systems of finance, education, and governance, at all levels. Political pluralism and citizenship rights. Fairness before the law for all social groups together. Infrastructure that eases communication. Education, media, and public information policies that reinforce norms and values of tolerance and diversity.Social Capital,Public Health Promotion,Education and Society,Decentralization,Community Development and Empowerment,Poverty Assessment,National Governance,Governance Indicators,Social Capital,Community Development and Empowerment

Onset of word form recognition in English, Welsh, and English-Welsh bilingual infants

Children raised in the home as English or Welsh monolinguals or English–Welsh bilinguals were tested on untrained word form recognition using both behavioral and neurophysiological procedures. Behavioral measures confirmed the onset of a familiarity effect at 11 months in English but failed to identify it in monolingual Welsh infants between 9 and 12 months. In the neurophysiological procedure the familiarity effect was detected as early as 10 months in English but did not reach significance in monolingual Welsh. Bilingual children showed word form familiarity effects by 11 months in both languages and also revealed an online time course for word recognition that combined effects found for monolingual English and Welsh. To account for the findings, accentual, grammatical, and sociolinguistic differences between English and Welsh are considered