The scientific loss of languages is overshadowed by the loss of cultural knowledge. Unlike biodiversity, preserving past conditions isn’t viable or desirable. The best way to address this challenge is through coordination between governments, academia, and, most crucially, engaged communities.

Despite growing concern over diversity and more research on child language acquisition, the number of unstudied languages remains steady. Just two new languages are studied each year, while many more stop being passed to children—soon, more will be lost than studied.

Not only are child language studies focused on institutionally similar languages and capture only a narrow range of phonetic and grammatical diversity. About 10% of this diversity can’t be studied in child learners, as those languages are no longer being acquired by children today.

NEW PAPER: Linguistics has long debated the scientific cost of narrow sampling, but growing language endangerment makes this debate urgent. We compare studied and unstudied languages in child language acquisition to assess how narrow sampling limits our understanding
doi.org/10.1162/opmi...

I've had some fun talking about this project on national and local radio, with ABC NewsRadio, ABC Canberra,
and 2CC radio. The paper was also covered by Forbes alongside a paper by @YutoOzaki1 which you should also read:
forbes.com/sites/evaams...

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc

My new paper at NatureComms tells us that musical style holds a historical signal. We show that in five dimensions of musical style, there is geographic autocorrelation and treelike structure similar to level that we see in models of language evolution.

t.co/wngVULl8Jz

I am giving a seminar on the linguistic diversity of New Guinea at UoA today at 4pm. Please join if you are around!

It is very gratifying to know your research is influencing the right people.

@patrickesavage.bsky.social

Reposting from elsewhere:
PhD Scholarship - call for applications. Come study the cultural evolution of mentalising or religion with [Joseph Watts] at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand

josephwatts.org/2024PhDschol...

Had a great time at the #Grambank workshop in Leipzig. Of course the best parts were the people and the talks but I only took photos of the buildings.

Just finished an excellent visit to see Diego Alburez-Gutierrez @ MPIDR in Rostock to talk kinship and demography. Lots of interesting discussions and beautiful weather. Next stop Leipzig!