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A new study shows that word-initial consonants are systematically lengthened across a diverse sample of languages Speech consists of a continuous stream of acoustic signals, yet humans can segment words from each other with astonishing precision and speed. To find out how this is possible, a team of linguists has analysed durations of consonants at different positions in words and utterances across a diverse sample of languages.

For decades, researchers have assumed that people overestimate the risk of dramatic causes of death, such as road traffic accidents. The reason given for this was that such deaths are the subject of far greater media attention than more significant but less spectacular mortality risks. However, a study at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now debunked this assumption.

Linguistic analysis provides insight into the vocabularies for body parts in more than a thousand languages Human bodies have similar designs. However, languages differ in the way they divide the body into parts and name them. A team of linguists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the University of Passau conducted a comparison of body part vocabularies to shed light on the interplay between language, culture, and perception of the human body.

Novels and poems often contain descriptions of plants or animals - sometimes more, sometimes less detailed. The extent to which flora and fauna feature in a literary work also depends on who wrote it and under what circumstances. For example, female authors tend to use more species names when they write.

Study on the connection between language and thinking by neuroscientists at Freie Universität Berlin published The influence of language on human thinking may be stronger than previously thought. This is the result of a new study by the language, cognition, and neuroscientist Friedemann Pulvermüller and his team from the Laboratory for Brain and Language Research at Freie Universität Berlin.

Throughout history, people have created different sign systems that correspond to the specifics of each language. The scripts have evolved in the process. Today, it is no longer possible to trace exactly how, since the development has usually been completed thousands of years ago. This is not the case with the West African Vai script, which did not come into being until the 1830s.

An international team has created a new database that documents patterns of grammatical variation in over 2400 of the world's languages What shapes the structure of languages? In a new study, an international team of researchers reports that grammatical structure is highly flexible across languages, shaped by common ancestry, constraints on cognition and usage, and language contact.

New study by a researcher in English didactics at Freie Universität Berlin shows that the use of hand gestures in English lessons can improve language retention A recent study from the Institute of English Language and Literature at Freie Universität Berlin has shown that using codified gestures as a teaching method may make it easier for children and adolescents to understand the grammar rules of a foreign language.

A global database helps explore the complex history of our genes and languages Does the history of our languages match the history of our genes? Charles Darwin thought yes, others said no. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Zurich and Harvard University has put together GeLaTo, a global database linking linguistic and genetic data.

Linguists and computer scientists collaborate to publish a large global Open Access lexical database Scholars from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the University of Auckland in New Zealand have created a new global repository of linguistic data. The project is designed to facilitate new insights into the evolution of words and sounds of the languages spoken across the world today.

Current calls for blood donations highlight the urgent need for blood. A new study at Universität Hamburg shows that the willingness to donate blood has dramatically decreased throughout the pandemic. The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE. Even before the corona pandemic, there were repeated blood drives to meet urgent needs.

Researchers at Freie Universität Berlin investigated structures of discrimination and privileges in the theater No 144/2020 from Aug 25, 2020 A study by researchers at Freie Universität has surprisingly shown that men with a migration background and people with a nonbinary gender identity experience a slight advantage over other male applicants in the field of theater.

Nowadays, Digital Humanities is a booming subject, but it has a long history. "Quantitative Literary Studies" at the University of Stuttgart investigates how computational methods have been used for the analysis and interpretation of language and literature since the early 19th century. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has now approved the continuation of the project.

Volkswagen Foundation Sponsors Project at Freie Universität on Relationship between Theory and Practice in Art and Science of Dance with 195,000 Euros / Press Image The Volkswagen Foundation is supporting a research project at Freie Universität Berlin that is investigating the relationship between theory and practice in the art and science of dance.

Research Workshop of Université catholique de Louvain and Freie Universität Berlin from December 7 to 9, 2015 How does language use change with increasing age? What can psychologists learn from linguists and vice versa? And how can the findings of linguistic research be useful for health care workers, care givers, relatives, and senior citizens themselves? These and other issues will be addressed by the participants of a research workshop that will take place from December 7 to 9, 2015, at Universität Louvain (UCL).

The Collaborative Research Centre "Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies" (CRC 933) will continue its successful work at Heidelberg University for another four years. After an international expert evaluation, the German Research Foundation (DFG) approved a second funding period in the amount of approx. 10 million euros.

Over 80% of all products manufactured today in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries require the use of catalysts. Catalysts are materials which themselves are not consumed within chemical reactions, but which serve to accelerate those reactions and set them on course to create the desired products.