A new study led by researchers at the University of Zurich provides the first systematic review of musical instrument diversity in the archaeological and ethnographic history of the continent, suggesting cultural contact over long geographic distances, and cases of recent extinction. These findings bring a new piece to the puzzle of human history that combines the movement of populations, cultural characteristics and the evolutionary history of languages.
the Swiss National Competence Center in Research ‘Evolving Language’ is happy to announce a special symposium on The Molecular Anthropology of Language: Results and Prospects. This two-day event held at the University of Zurich from 29-30 September 2021 will bring together both established and emerging leaders in this burgeoning field.
The NCCR Evolving Language community took actively part in Scientifica, the science festival held by the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich on September 4-5.
Humans have been always on the move, creating a complex history of languages and cultural traditions dispersed over the globe. An international team under UZH’s lead has now traced families of related languages over more than 10,000 years by combining data from genetics, linguistics and musicology using novel digital methods. Their findings: grammar reflects best the common prehistory of a population and therefore mirrors genetics more than any other cultural feature.
Apes use specific gestures to start and end social interaction. A behavior not seen outside of the human species until now, report scientists from the Universities of Neuchâtel (UniNE) and Durham (UK). They also found that the social and power dynamics between the interacting apes affected the communication efforts used, which the researchers say mirrors patterns similar to human politeness. The findings are published today in the journal iScience.
Our PI Paul Widmer has been appointed Full Professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the University of Zurich, Department of Comparative Language Science. Congratulations to him!
A workshop sponsored by the platform Congressi Stefano Franscini (ETH) and the Latin American Center Zurich to promote exchanges and conversations on the state of the art research on human diversity and landscape impacts in South America. Participants include experts from different fields such as archaeology, history, anthropology, linguistics, genetics, botanic.
Are you eager to learn about science communication and storytelling? Do you want to create a short film about your research under the mentorship of experts and present it in a cinema? Here’s the opportunity! We’re very happy to tell you that we’ve partnered up with the association SciFilmIt, which aims at bridging the gap between science and emotion through film.
We’re very happy that Carmen Saldana and Chiara Barbieri agreed to participate in the SciFilmIt Hackathons and created a movie on language.
Silvia Marchesotti received the Swiss Dyslexia Association Research Award 2021 for her work “Selective enhancement of low-gamma activity by tACS improves phonemic processing and reading accuracy in dyslexia”.