Balthasar Bickel
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balthasarbickel.bsky.social
Balthasar Bickel
@balthasarbickel.bsky.social
350 followers 120 following 9 posts
Director, NCCR Evolving Language (www.evolvinglanguage.ch) and Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Zürich, Switzerland
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
With @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social @annagraff.bsky.social
@balthasarbickel.bsky.social @kkshimizu1.bsky.social Damián E. Blasi, Erik J. Ringen, Vladimir Bajić, Daphné Bavelier, and Brigitte Pakendorf.
August 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
annagraff.bsky.social
Our paper is out! We linked genetic and linguistic data to study how contact changes language and found consistent patterns of borrowing across contact situations
@balthasarbickel.bsky.social @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @isle-uzh.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv7521
Patterns of genetic admixture reveal similar rates of borrowing across diverse scenarios of language contact
Human population contact leads to consistently similar rates of linguistic borrowing, but effects vary across linguistic features.
www.science.org
August 30, 2025 at 8:53 AM
balthasarbickel.bsky.social
Exciting new opening @nccrlanguage.bsky.social with the option of permanent extension. If you work in cutting-edge stats and are interested in joining a highly inter-disciplinary, vibrant community, don't hesitate to apply at tinyurl.com/3fxwjk8e
UZH: Statistician
Within the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Evolving Language and its 46 different research groups from a large variety of disciplines across Switzerland, and the University of Zurich ...
tinyurl.com
July 18, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
📰 A team of researchers from the University of Neuchâtel studied the ability to associate a new sound with an object. This cognitive faculty of rapid association was already attested in humans, but what about apes, our closest relatives?

evolvinglanguage.ch/associating-...
Associating a sound with the object it refers to - NCCR Evolving Language
A team of researchers from the University of Neuchâtel studied the ability to associate a new sound with an object, amidst a noisy but familiar environment. This cognitive faculty of rapid association...
evolvinglanguage.ch
July 15, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
📢 Registrations are now open for the X-PPL Workshop 2025!

Held by the @isle-uzh.bsky.social in Zurich on the 1st and 2nd of September.
isle-uzh.bsky.social Inst. for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution UZ @isle-uzh.bsky.social · Jul 3
🎉 Registration is open for the Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing & Learning Workshop 2025!

Join us in Zurich (01–02.09.) for keynotes by Sudha Arunachalam & Lars Meyer, plus other exciting talks & posters.

Register: www.ema.uzh.ch/R7EPE

#XPPL2025 #LanguageDiversity #CogSci #UZH
Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning (X-PPL 2025)
September 1, 8:30 AM - September 2, 6:00 PM | University of Zurich, AFL building
www.ema.uzh.ch
July 3, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
Very interesting @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social study by @sabinestoll.bsky.social @balthasarbickel.bsky.social & colleagues @nccrlanguage.bsky.social arguing that increased vocal accommodation (as a sign of homophily) facilitated the evolution
of vocal production learning in the hominin lineage 🧪
From vocal homophily to vocal repertoire flexibility: Unravelling the socioecological drivers of language evolution
ecoevorxiv.org
June 23, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
isle-uzh.bsky.social
🎉 Registration is open for the Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing & Learning Workshop 2025!

Join us in Zurich (01–02.09.) for keynotes by Sudha Arunachalam & Lars Meyer, plus other exciting talks & posters.

Register: www.ema.uzh.ch/R7EPE

#XPPL2025 #LanguageDiversity #CogSci #UZH
Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning (X-PPL 2025)
September 1, 8:30 AM - September 2, 6:00 PM | University of Zurich, AFL building
www.ema.uzh.ch
July 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM
balthasarbickel.bsky.social
Brilliant case of the @nccrlanguage.bsky.social spirit of team science. Congratulations on a major achievement!
sabinestoll.bsky.social Sabine Stoll @sabinestoll.bsky.social · Jun 26
New paper by our @nccrlanguage.bsky.social team w @franziswegdell.bsky.social, @carolinefryns.bsky.social , J Schick , @zuberbuehler.bsky.social, C v Schaik, S Townsend, and myself. Child-directed communication is a driver of language evolution.
shorturl.at/eAfjW
June 26, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
sabinestoll.bsky.social
How do children learn to negate with diverse linguistic and cultural background? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The road to negation: A comparative study of five typologically and culturally diverse languages - Sakine Çabuk-Ballı, Aylin C Küntay, Paul Widmer, Sabine Stoll, 2025
The acquisition of negation is a key milestone in early language development that enables children to express rejection, non-existence, and deny propositions. I...
journals.sagepub.com
June 20, 2025 at 5:23 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
sabinestoll.bsky.social
New paper on the role of peers in language acquisition: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
Children Learn Best From Their Peers: The Crucial Role of Input From Other Children in Language Development
direct.mit.edu
June 20, 2025 at 5:17 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
Very happy to share a new preprint, written with people I have learned a lot from: Paola Cerrito, Carel van Schaik, Judith Burkart, Anne-Lise Giraud (@neurospeech.bsky.social), Daphne Baverlier, @balthasarbickel.bsky.social: how the communication system of neanderthals may have differed from ours
🧪🧵
Pleistocene origins of cultural and linguistic diversification: how Homo sapiens and Neanderthals differed
ecoevorxiv.org
June 2, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
Delighted to announce the publication of a collaborative effort, co-led by @limorraviv.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social, showcasing the ways in which researchers have made language evolution an empirical issue: A handbook of experimental approaches to the fascinating problem of language evolution 🧪
Book cover by Simon Kirby
May 27, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
sebastiansauppe.bsky.social
Submit an abstract 📝 on your work on cross-linguistic aspects of language processing and (first) language acquisition to ⭐️Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning (X-PPL) 2025⭐️ (Sept 1&2 @ U Zurich)! It’s a fantastic venue to present work on how ling diversity 🌏 & the mind/🧠 interact!
isle-uzh.bsky.social Inst. for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution UZ @isle-uzh.bsky.social · Feb 24
📢 Join us at the Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning Workshop 2025 (Sept 1–2, University of #Zurich) to explore how language structure, processing, and learning interact across languages!

Learn more: tinyurl.com/bdf5jhnb
Deadline: May 31
@nccrlanguage.bsky.social
The LINGUIST List
The LINGUIST List, International Linguistics Community Online.
tinyurl.com
May 21, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
sandra-oliveira.bsky.social
Happy to share a PhD opportunity in my new lab at the University of Zurich! Application deadline: June 30. Do not hesitate to contact me for any questions!
May 20, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
Sind Sie deutschsprachig mit wenigen Französischkenntnisse? Dann nehmen Sie an einer wissenschaftlichen Online-Studie über Sprache von @nocelab.bsky.social teil und helfen Sie dabei, den Einfluss der Sprache auf die Kognition zu verstehen.
March 12, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
📰 In the current issue of Open Mind @mitpress.bsky.social, you can find two #articles from NCCR members on #hominin #cognition and perception of events, and #language #acquisition in children 👇
May 14, 2025 at 6:53 AM
balthasarbickel.bsky.social
Great to see this out! Congratulations to lead author Aitor Egurtzegi and the whole team!
May 20, 2025 at 6:01 AM
balthasarbickel.bsky.social
And yet another piece of evidence for the primate roots of human event role cognition! Congratulations to lead author @sarahbrocard.bsky.social
May 20, 2025 at 5:59 AM
balthasarbickel.bsky.social
‼️ PhD opportunity: join a vibrant community working on language evolution @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @isle-uzh.bsky.social please spread widely www.isle.uzh.ch/en/jobs/phd-...
www.isle.uzh.ch
May 20, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
isle-uzh.bsky.social
Our next ISLE Colloquium will be from Anna Graff (Uni Zurich), on "What population genetics can tell us about the impact of contact and isolation on structural linguistic diversity"
Tues 29 April 4:15pm
UZH Oerlikon, room AFL-F-121
www.isle.uzh.ch/en/staff/gra...
Anna Graff portrait photo
April 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
nccrlanguage.bsky.social
📢 Submissions are open for the Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning Workshop 2025!

@isle-uzh.bsky.social
isle-uzh.bsky.social Inst. for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution UZ @isle-uzh.bsky.social · Feb 24
📢 Join us at the Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning Workshop 2025 (Sept 1–2, University of #Zurich) to explore how language structure, processing, and learning interact across languages!

Learn more: tinyurl.com/bdf5jhnb
Deadline: May 31
@nccrlanguage.bsky.social
The LINGUIST List
The LINGUIST List, International Linguistics Community Online.
tinyurl.com
April 28, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
Paola Cerrito, who is starting her own Hominin Evolution Group at the University of Zürich, has just opened a great PhD position. Fantastic opportunity for someone interested in human life history evolution. I am lucky to collaborate with Paola. She is a terrific scholar
@nccrlanguage.bsky.social
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology | Department of Evolutionary Anthropology | UZH
www.aim.uzh.ch
April 9, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
johnbasil.bsky.social
I'm hiring! 2 x PhDs and 1 x PostDoc, to work with me at Uni Zurich on a project investigating how semantic patterns differ by geographic region.
Linguistic typology, data science, spatial analysis, phylogenetic methods, potential fieldwork... REPOST 🙏
www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en/jobs.html
Open Positions
www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch
April 7, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
berthetmelissa.bsky.social
We also wrote a lay article in @theconversation.com about our latest research on bonobo vocal communication!

theconversation.com/bonobos-crea...
Bonobos create phrases in similar ways to humans, new study suggests
Human language is not as unique as we think.
theconversation.com
April 4, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Balthasar Bickel
berthetmelissa.bsky.social
🚨New in @science.org🚨
With Simon Townsend (@nccrlanguage.bsky.social) and Martin Surbeck, we have investigated whether wild bonobos can combine calls in complex combinations, similar to how humans combine words into sentences 🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#ScienceResearch #AnimalCommunication
Extensive compositionality in the vocal system of bonobos
Compositionality, the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger meaningful structures, is a hallmark of human language. Compositionality can be trivial (the combination’s meaning is the sum ...
www.science.org
April 4, 2025 at 8:22 AM