Human Diversity seminar 27.1.2025, Sinnemäki

Monday 27 January 2025 at 12.15-13.15 in Tauno Nurmela hall, main building. Zoom https://utu.zoom.us/j/61515345616

Professor Kaius Sinnemäki, from the University of Helsinki, Department of  Languages.

Title: Convergence and divergence of languages across contact ecologies. 

Abstract:

This talk will concern convergence and divergence in bilingual contact ecologies. In historical linguistics, convergence is often used as a diagnostic that one language has changed because of its contact with another language. Divergence is less often discussed in the field, but its role has received increasing interest over the past decade or so. In the talk I will describe a new typological approach to language contact that makes it possible to compare the probablity of convergence and divergence across diverse contact ecologies in the world. The results, based on roughly 50 contact scenarios from all continents, suggest that the probability of divergence is surprisingly high and there is much variation in divergence across linguistic features. Overall, the talk highlights the importance of researching divergence and relating it systematically to convergence in contact situations.

Keywords for the study: Linguistic variation and diversity; Language typology; Quantitative methods in linguistics; Sociolinguistic typology; Language complexity; Language and religion