Linguistics

Ian Maddieson, a beloved research professor in the department of linguistics at The University of New Mexico, died Feb. 2. He was 83.  A private memorial event was held in his honor Feb. 22.  Maddieson worked with colleagues, students and research...

The University of New Mexico Signed Language Interpreting Program (SLI) earned re-accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Interpreter Education last month, marking it once again as one of the foremost universities for future...

The University of New Mexico Department of Linguistics recently received a $494,659 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for their project titled, “Addressee effects in demonstrative systems across bilingual communities.” This three-year project,...

The first ever Child Language Acquisition Symposium for Indigenous Communities (CLASIC) takes place on May 17 and 18 at UNM. CLASIC will be held at the Hibben Center by UNM’s Indigenous Child Language Research Center (ICLRC), as part of the Department...

Two undergraduates in the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab at The University of New Mexico are studying linguistic bias and its effects and working to raise teachers’ awareness of it in the classroom. The LLA Lab teacher outreach team is currently...

Nearly 10 years ago, The University of New Mexico became the first institution selected to provide a unique fellowship dedicated to supporting doctoral students in the humanities.   Thanks to the Bilinski Educational Foundation, more than 60 students...

A child’s first word is a milestone built upon months or years of constant interactions with friends, family, and community. Even a consistent “hello” at the grocery store from beaming cashiers is the kind of interaction that fosters language development...

There are thousands of languages which span across nations and time–an estimated seven thousand known so far. UNM Linguistics recently hired Assistant Professor Joshua Birchall is one of the many linguists working tirelessly to understand, document and...

According to the 2020 Census, about one in three households in New Mexico speak a language other than English at home — higher than the national average of about one in five.  Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, after English, yet...

Me-muh-ry or mem-ry (memory), fa-muh-ly or fam-ly (family), ce-luh-ry or cel-ry (celery), and so on – there are different ways to pronounce words. Across languages, linguists spend a lot of time figuring out what it is about the way that we use...