New Guinea Is One Of The Most Linguistically Diverse Places In The World, With More Than 1000 Distinct

One thousand different words for water
Researcher puts New Guinea’s numerous languages online

New Guinea is one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, with more than 1000 distinct languages crammed into an area not much larger than the state of Texas.

Despite this rich variety—for comparison, Europe contains about 280 languages—linguists have only analyzed the grammatical structures of a fraction of the South Pacific island’s languages. Now, Simon Greenhill, a linguist at Australian National University in Canberra, is trying to remedy that situation, by gathering together hundreds of thousands of words from published surveys, book chapters, and articles, as well as the accounts of early European explorers, and putting them into an online database called TransNewGuinea.org.

Updated daily, the site already contains glossaries for more than 1000 languages from 23 different language families, including 145,000 words. There are roughly 1000 different words for “water,” as well as for “louse,” and linguists and language enthusiasts can view all the languages by geographic origin in an interactive map.

Greenhill introduced the scientific community to the site(PDF) this week in the journal PLOS ONE; already, he has used the database to look for clues about how the different languages are related. Through comparative, historical, and computational analyses of the data, he hopes the linguistic community will now use the site to solve long-standing questions about how New Guinean populations expanded and spread their culture. 

More Posts from Dotmpotter and Others

9 years ago

Shaken: cocktail kits by mail

Shaken: Cocktail Kits By Mail
Shaken: Cocktail Kits By Mail

Shaken is a UK startup that sells subscriptions to “the best cocktails you’ve ever made.” Every month, they send you a handsome box with several bottles of rare and delicious booze, small-batch bitters, and a cocktail recipe explaining the history, chemistry and practice of some classic or novel cocktail.

You bring this stuff into your kitchen and play with it, mixing drinks according to the recipe or its variants, or your taste, according to your preference. They supply everything except ice, fruit, shakers and glassware, and each box has enough booze for four drinks.

The Shaken folks took over my old offices in London when I moved to LA this summer and I got to try some of their packages before I left. They turned me on to what is literally some of the best booze I’ve ever drunk (particularly the Plantation rums, which are finished in Cognac casks and taste like nothing you’ve ever tried before – there’s one that finishes exactly like a smoky Islay, which is indescribably brilliant).

Shaken doesn’t assume that you’re a hardcore cocktail fan, and the recipes are simple to follow. But they strike a great balance for people who want to go beyond, with ideas for refining and improving the basic recipe.

The boxes are no-obligation and you can skip a box any time you feel like it.

Read the rest

9 years ago
Cities As A Lab: Designing The Innovation Economy demonstrates How Design Can Foster Innovative Approaches

Cities as a Lab: Designing the Innovation Economy demonstrates how design can foster innovative approaches to the changing needs of American cities. The world is increasingly urbanizing and cities and their wider metropolitan areas are asserting themselves as a fundamental unit of the global economy. Cities can thrive by building transformational places that incubate creativity and adapt to future challenges and opportunities. Cities as a Lab explores the design and policy choices now creating the great places of the future: urban design interventions, visionary planning efforts, and public-private partnerships. The fabric of the city, with its people, buildings, commerce, and transportation networks, promotes relationship formation, business creation, and game-changing ideas.

9 years ago
A Smart Menstrual Cup That Tracks Your Period And Makes Sure You’re Healthy Http://ift.tt/1Ltl8JD

A Smart Menstrual Cup That Tracks Your Period And Makes Sure You’re Healthy http://ift.tt/1Ltl8JD

9 years ago
10 Reasons Why Cities Hold The Key To Climate Change And Global Health 

10 reasons why cities hold the key to climate change and global health 


Tags
9 years ago

The Scripps CO2 measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the big island of Hawaii have shown that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels climbed above the 400 parts per million (ppm). Because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a very long time, some scientists say for millennia, our global fever has reached the point that no one alive today, and those that follow us, will ever know a world below 400 ppm again.

This week will be the last time anyone alive experiences a CO2 level below 400 ppm. (Saturday Nov 21, 2015)


Tags
9 years ago

As a psychologist, particularly one of a therapeutic bent, I never felt much like a scientist. I mean, we’re fluffy bunnies in the world of “proper” science, no matter how much we talk about epistemological theory or Feyerabend’s ideas or squeeze gratuitous Greek letters and geometry style diagrams into our work.

As a lingerie professional, however, I’m sometimes quite scared about how little the industry seems to know about what it means to be scientific.

9 years ago
“We Are Not Facing A Future Without Work. We Are Facing A Future Without Jobs.“

“We are not facing a future without work. We are facing a future without jobs.“

READ MORE: Jobs, Work, and Universal Basic Income

9 years ago
ADB Finances Renewable Energy Transmission System In India

ADB Finances Renewable Energy Transmission System in India

9 years ago
Different mechanism... similar effect.
dotmpotter - dot potter
Loading...
End of content
No more pages to load
  • firmgripdownwiththeship
    firmgripdownwiththeship liked this · 8 years ago
  • celestialelf
    celestialelf liked this · 9 years ago
  • timetosblog
    timetosblog reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • thelearning-polyglot
    thelearning-polyglot reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • honeygordo
    honeygordo liked this · 9 years ago
  • withswords
    withswords reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • dotmpotter
    dotmpotter reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • turtleburps
    turtleburps liked this · 9 years ago
  • luncheon-aspic
    luncheon-aspic reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • luncheon-aspic
    luncheon-aspic liked this · 9 years ago
  • astrologophile
    astrologophile liked this · 9 years ago
  • cottonwoolfairy
    cottonwoolfairy liked this · 9 years ago
  • toutbienourien
    toutbienourien liked this · 9 years ago
  • spugpow
    spugpow liked this · 9 years ago
  • tophatmonster94
    tophatmonster94 reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • furthershores
    furthershores liked this · 9 years ago
  • genfiction
    genfiction reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • rivercityrabbitsbro
    rivercityrabbitsbro liked this · 9 years ago
  • tomirwinsglasses
    tomirwinsglasses liked this · 9 years ago
  • doubleasalways-blog
    doubleasalways-blog liked this · 9 years ago
  • dancing-with-spirits
    dancing-with-spirits liked this · 9 years ago
  • utulien-aure
    utulien-aure reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • utulien-aure
    utulien-aure liked this · 9 years ago
  • averyterrible
    averyterrible liked this · 9 years ago
  • produdfctititty
    produdfctititty reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • whenzarastudies-blog
    whenzarastudies-blog liked this · 9 years ago
  • studyharder1
    studyharder1 reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • lisztian
    lisztian liked this · 9 years ago
  • linguisten
    linguisten reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • impalagurl67
    impalagurl67 liked this · 9 years ago
  • nocombatjustwombats
    nocombatjustwombats liked this · 9 years ago
  • thepaintedlady89
    thepaintedlady89 reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • thepaintedlady89
    thepaintedlady89 liked this · 9 years ago
  • therodentqueen
    therodentqueen liked this · 9 years ago
  • prettyredballoon
    prettyredballoon liked this · 9 years ago
  • transroboteeveegirl
    transroboteeveegirl reblogged this · 9 years ago
  • listenforlinks
    listenforlinks reblogged this · 9 years ago
dotmpotter - dot potter
dot potter

Reminding myself that people are making a difference.

259 posts

Explore Tumblr Blog
Search Through Tumblr Tags