Hacker News with Generative AI: Linguistics

Searching for DeepSeek's glitch tokens (outsidetext.substack.com)
“Anomalous”, “glitch”, or “unspeakable” tokens in an LLM are those that induce bizarre behavior or otherwise don’t behave like regular text.
Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics
201 points by arithmoquine 3 days ago | 45 comments
Why is zero plural? (2024) (stackexchange.com)
For example, if we choose two 2s, zero 3s, and one 5, we get the divisor
Grammar, Linguistics, English Language, Math
124 points by not_a_boat 7 days ago | 200 comments
Brits still associate working-class accents with criminals – study warns of bias (cam.ac.uk)
People who speak with accents perceived as ‘working-class’ including those from Liverpool, Newcastle, Bradford and London risk being stereotyped as more likely to have committed a crime, and becoming victims of injustice, a new study suggests.
Social Science, Linguistics, Stereotypes, Bias, Criminology
10 points by gnabgib 11 days ago | 3 comments
The rise and fall of the English sentence (2017) (nautil.us)
The surprising forces influencing the complexity of the language we speak and write.
Language, Linguistics, History, Writing
100 points by cal85 15 days ago | 51 comments
Bog Standard (2005) (bbc.co.uk)
It's pretty rare in English to find a compound word with a slang first part and a formal second part.
Language, Linguistics, Slang, English
25 points by susam 21 days ago | 5 comments
Did OpenAI's O1 Decipher the Indus Valley Script? (yashgoenka.com)
A few weeks ago, I had a fascinating conversation with OpenAI's O1 model about decoding the Indus Valley script - one of the world's oldest and still undeciphered writing systems.
Artificial Intelligence, History, Linguistics, Ancient Civilizations
7 points by yashvg 22 days ago | 3 comments
English-friendly Romanization system proposed for Japanese language (asahi.com)
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is soliciting public comments about its plans to change romanization rules of the Japanese language for the first time in about 70 years.
Language, Japan, Linguistics, Public Policy
19 points by anigbrowl 23 days ago | 23 comments
2025 Banished Words List (lssu.edu)
Lake Superior State University (LSSU) proudly reveals the 2025 edition of its Banished Words List, a quirky tradition that dates back to 1976, when former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and his colleagues delighted word enthusiasts with the first “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness”.
Language, Tradition, Humor, Education, Linguistics
58 points by OldGuyInTheClub 27 days ago | 70 comments
Ancient Indus Valley Script Deciphered (indusscript.net)
The official Indus inscriptions repository
Ancient History, Archaeology, Linguistics, India
8 points by samagra14 33 days ago | 2 comments
Ancient genomes provide final word in Indo-European linguistic origins (phys.org)
A team of 91 researchers—including famed geneticist Eske Willerslev at the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Center, University of Copenhagen—has discovered a Bronze Age genetic divergence connected to eastern and western Mediterranean Indo-European language speakers.
Genetics, Linguistics, History, Archeology
65 points by Brajeshwar 33 days ago | 16 comments
Interpol wants everyone to stop saying 'pig butchering' (theregister.com)
Interpol wants to put an end to the online scam known as "pig butchering" – through linguistic policing, rather than law enforcement.
Scams, Cybersecurity, Linguistics, Law Enforcement
9 points by defrost 42 days ago | 3 comments
Noam Chomsky at 96 (theconversation.com)
Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most famous and respected intellectuals, will be 96 years old on Dec. 7, 2024. For more than half a century, multitudes of people have read his works in a variety of languages, and many people have relied on his commentaries and interviews for insights about intellectual debates and current events.
Noam Chomsky, Intellectuals, Linguistics, Politics, Academia
3 points by lr0 42 days ago | 0 comments
MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style (news.mit.edu)
Legal documents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for lawyers. This raises the question: Why are these documents written in a style that makes them so impenetrable?
Legal, Linguistics, Research, MIT, Law
373 points by keepamovin 43 days ago | 423 comments
Mysterious tablet with unknown language unearthed in Georgia (archaeologymag.com)
A basalt tablet inscribed with an enigmatic language has been unearthed near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia’s Dmanisi region.
Archaeology, Linguistics, Georgia
125 points by speckx 46 days ago | 97 comments
Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023) (lionsroar.com)
Translator Estefania Duque shares her journey studying Tibetan, revealing how language shapes the mind, influences perspective, and offers spiritual inspiration.
Language Learning, Tibetan, Linguistics, Philosophy, Spirituality
86 points by whereistimbo 47 days ago | 87 comments
AI Guesses Your Accent (boldvoice.com)
Do you have an accent when speaking English? I bet I can guess your native language in less than 30 seconds.
Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Language Recognition
222 points by mikpanko 48 days ago | 262 comments
Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (atlasobscura.com)
In 1979 in the town of Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, Joan Poole Nash sat across from her great-grandmother Emily Howland Poole, surrounded by a team of linguists and a video camera. “Do you remember the signs for rain or snow?” In response her great-grandmother moved her hands, which were recorded on grainy, black-and-white-tape.
Linguistics, Martha's Vineyard, History, Sign Language
53 points by tbodt 67 days ago | 9 comments
Phonetic Matching (smoores.dev)
Just as heads up: This post starts out somewhat technical and includes a discussion of interesting algorithmic topics, like forced alignment and phonetic matching. But it ends by delving into some deeper social and human topics that might not be what everyone is looking for in a blog that’s mostly about software.
Algorithms, Software, Linguistics, Social Issues, Forced Alignment
77 points by raybb 72 days ago | 36 comments
Chrestomathy (wikipedia.org)
A chrestomathy (/krɛˈstɒməθi/ kreh-STOM-ə-thee; from the Ancient Greek χρηστομάθεια khrēstomátheia 'desire of learning', from χρηστός khrēstós 'useful' + μανθάνω manthánō 'learn') is a collection of selected literary passages (usually from a single author); a selection of literary passages from a foreign language assembled for studying the language; or a text in various languages, used especially as an aid in learning a subject.
Language Learning, Literature, Linguistics, Education
18 points by thunderbong 75 days ago | 1 comments
Mathematical meaning is not captured by meaning-as-use (willzeng.com)
“The meaning of a word is its use in the language.” - Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Philosophy, Linguistics, Semantics
7 points by sebg 75 days ago | 0 comments
Pre-Greek Substrate (wikipedia.org)
The pre-Greek substrate (or substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Greek language or languages (either Pre-Indo-European or other Indo-European languages) spoken in prehistoric Greece prior to the emergence of the Proto-Greek language in the region c. 3200–2200 BC, during the Early Helladic period.
Linguistics, History, Greece, Ancient History, Pre-Indo-European Languages
25 points by diodorus 77 days ago | 3 comments
A brief history of the word "fuck" (lithub.com)
In all of English there are few words rich enough in their history and variety of use to warrant a dedicated dictionary that runs to hundreds of pages and multiple editions.
Language, History, Linguistics, Etymology, Vulgar Language
38 points by tintinnabula 82 days ago | 21 comments
Gadsby: Wikip_dia's Lost Lipogram (2015) [pdf] (core.ac.uk)
Literature, Language, History, Linguistics
9 points by pncnmnp 82 days ago | 0 comments
Title drops in movies (titledrops.net)
A title drop is when a character in a movie says the title of the movie they're in. Here's a large-scale analysis of 73,921 movies from the last 80 years on how often, when and maybe even why that happens.
Movies, Data Analysis, Linguistics
554 points by gaws 84 days ago | 167 comments
The 1600s were a watershed for swear words (2022) (historytoday.com)
Swear words are a constant, but their ability to cause offence is in flux. In the 1600s, today's obscenities were mundane.
Language, History, Linguistics, Culture, Social Change
119 points by pepys 93 days ago | 145 comments
A Misreading Of Yoda (gregorypellechi.com)
This essay will be finished.
Essays, Writing, Linguistics, Star Wars
5 points by ilrwbwrkhv 96 days ago | 0 comments
Indo-European Words for 'Name' (starkeycomics.com)
I’ve created a huge tree to show the relationship between 64 living Indo-European languages, and many dead or extinct ones.With this template I’m planning on making a series of images to show how various words in these languages have shared etymologies. This is the first image in that series: words for “name”.
Linguistics, Etymology, Language Evolution, Indo-European Languages
6 points by clockworksoul 97 days ago | 2 comments
Mondegreen (wikipedia.org)
A mondegreen (/ˈmɒndɪˌɡriːn/ ⓘ) is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.[1] Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.[2][3] The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, recalling a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad "The Bonnie Earl
Linguistics, Language, Misinterpretations, Culture, Poetry
26 points by keiferski 100 days ago | 13 comments
Rekhta (wikipedia.org)
Rekhta (Urdu: ریختہ [ˈreːxtaː]; Hindi: रेख़्ता [ˈreːxtaː]) was an early form of the Hindustani language.
Language, History, Linguistics, Urdu, Hindi
7 points by thunderbong 102 days ago | 0 comments
Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought (scientificamerican.com)
Scholars have long contemplated the connection between language and thought—and to what degree the two are intertwined—by asking whether language is somehow an essential prerequisite for thinking.
Cognitive Science, Linguistics, Philosophy
562 points by orcul 103 days ago | 408 comments