Events

Upcoming events

Event Information:

  • Fri
    12
    Dec
    2025

    Bernat Bardagil (Ghent University) - Argument marking patterns as a proxy for social contact in the Guaporé-Mamoré region of Amazonia

    10:00 amBlandijn 2 3.30 (Camelot)

    To what extent can we use a high-resolution comparative linguistics approach to open a window into human history when we lack tangible historical information? The Guaporé-Mamoré region, overlapping significant territory in the Bolivian and Brazilian lowlands, is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions in the continent. In spite of that, we know extremely little about the history of a vast majority of the languages, and the indigenous nations who speak them, before the 20th century. In this talk I will discuss my ongoing research examining grammatical properties in order to triangulate historical information about the nations inhabiting of this area.

    Jointly organised with BantUGent. To join the meeting online via MS teams, please contact Nina van der Vlugt.

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Past events

Event Information:

  • Thu
    09
    May
    2019

    Philippe Boula de Mareüil (CNRS): "Towards a speaking atlas of dialects and minority languages of Western Europe"

    2:30 pmGrote Vergaderzaal (Blandijnberg 2, 3rd floor)

    Abstract:

    We will describe a speaking atlas that takes the form of a website presenting interactive maps, where it is possible to click on over 300 survey points to listen to speech samples and read a transcript of what is said, in dialects and minority languages of France, Italy and Belgium. We show how an attractive website enables us to collect more data in underresourced and endangered languages and how these data may be used for phonetic analyses and dialectometry purposes. A one-minute story (“The North Wind and the Sun”) was used, phonetically transcribed automatically by grapheme-to-phoneme converters and forced aligned with the audio signal: a methodology which can be applied to other languages and dialects.

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