| Bookwyrm: | @[email protected] |
Why yes, I'm at work right now preparing to show my student research assistant some of Julia Silge's R code for topic modeling the Spice Girls because, you know, we need to replicate it for some classical Arabic stuff.
Reading this piece on Chinese script becoming more complex over time, and off what I know of the history of the Arabic script, I would think it applies. It has gotten more complex over time (the flattening due to shitty technology is a blip of an exception)
Abstract. Linguistic systems are hypothesised to be shaped by pressures towards communicative efficiency that drive processes of simplification. A longstanding illustration of this idea is the claim that Chinese characters have progressively simplified over time. Here we test this claim by analyzing a dataset with more than half a million images of Chinese characters spanning more than 3,000 years of recorded history. We find no consistent evidence of simplification through time, and contrary to popular belief we find that modern Chinese characters are higher in visual complexity than their earliest known counterparts. One plausible explanation for our findings is that simplicity trades off with distinctiveness, and that characters have become less simple because of pressures towards distinctiveness. Our findings are therefore compatible with functional accounts of language but highlight the diverse and sometimes counterintuitive ways in which linguistic systems are shaped by pressures for communicative efficiency.
Today in things I read and agree with: "Currently, translation studies cannot claim the name 'translation studies' because it does not study all forms of translation, only human ones." from Kobus Marais's "Tom, Dick, and Harry, as well as Fido, and Puss in Boots are Translators".
I mean I've agreed with this for ~5ish years now... Anyways I think I know how I'll deal with the references to the gender of animals in all the literature I've been reading.
How does one write a diversity statement for institutions that could *never*?
I got to teach a class where I had *not one single monolingual*. I did not have to deal with issues like centering US monolingualism. We also did not have to start with US-centric discussions.
It also makes me not want to teach in the US ever again, US college admissions just could never pull this off.
This writing exercise feels very ridiculous.
@Cyborgneticz 'The fediverse is about radical interdisciplinarity.'
'So you talk with people in both the humanities and hard sciences?'
'Yes. And also furries.'
Alisca
Michael 🌨️ 🐵