Human Diversity seminar 13.8.2024, Dediu

Tuesday 13.8.2024 at 10:15-11:00

Black Box, seminar room 269, Arcanum / Zoom

Dan Dediu, University of Barcelona
Color has it all: from genetics, perception, cognition and environment to large-scale cross linguistic variation

You can also participate the seminar via zoom: https://utu.zoom.us/j/61515345616

Abstract:

Where does the observed large-scale variation between human groups and their cultures and languages come from? How do they emerge? Here I’ll use the case of color to argue that, in some cases at least, inter-individual variation can be amplified to the level of large-scale patterns of variation. More precisely, the genetic and environmental effects on color perception, coupled with the complexity of its cognitive processing and expression in language “conspire” to produce, on the one hand, some universal tendencies in the colors lexicon, as well as fascinating patterns of variation between languages. This provides a window into the complex interplay between genetics, culture and language, and into the role played by the repeated use and transmission of language in complex dynamic networks for the way languages “cut reality at its joints” (in highly variable, but not too variables, ways).