Halloween Special: The Linguistics of the Paranormal

I asked our resident expert on linguistic "weird stuff," Sally Thomason (remember our phenomenal 10/24 meeting? The very same!) for some Halloween-related linguistics, and she was kind enough to forward me an article she wrote about xenoglossy, a spooky process by which someone suddenly learns a language or accent without acquiring it naturally, supposedly (according to the psychiatrist who first described it) a language learned in a previous life. She also posted an article about the linguistics of channeling spirits in the Skeptical Inquirer called "Entities in the linguistic minefield", and if anyone is able to find it that would be great.

Sally Thomason's Article

And here's a sort-of-related Colbert Report video on Japanese phonetics robots and Foreign Accent Syndrome!

The Colbert Report
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Last Monday's (10/24) Meeting and Halloween

Thanks so much to Sally Thomason for a phenomenal talk on fieldwork! She shared with us tips and tricks, responses to other fieldworkers' advice, problems she encountered, and a slew of entertaining anecdotes, mainly about her work on Montana Salish. It was an excellent talk, and we look forward very much to our next guest lecture from Marlyse Baptista on November 7th.
Just a reminder that we have NO meeting on Halloween, and that tutoring is cancelled for that evening. We may post a fun linguistics- and Halloween-related post for the Holiday on the blog though, so keep an eye out!
Other upcoming events include our next Colloquium Breakfast on November 4th with psycholinguist Katherine Kinzler.

Tonight: Rescheduled Sally Thomason Talk

Just a reminders that Sally Thomason's talk is rescheduled to TONIGHT at 7:30. There will be FREE PIZZA! Here is the abstract once again:
"I'll talk about some of the pitfalls of linguistic fieldwork -- especially fieldwork on endangered languages -- and on how to avoid those pitfalls. For instance: how to collect lots of lexical data from speakers who haven't spoken their language regularly for decades; how to collect data on nonstandard dialects when everyone who goes to school gets taught the standard dialect; how to avoid offending your consultants; how to collect data on rare grammatical constructions; how to deal with speaker-to-speaker variation; how to keep cultural taboos from preventing data collection."
Be there or be square!

Meeting Tonight: Sarah Harper on Media Lengua

Come join us tonight as Sarah Harper gives a talk on Media Lengua, a mixed language of Peru between Quechua and Spanish!