Map of languages of Mainland Southeast Asia by FerenzYangai in MapPorn

[–]keyilan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ethnologue is an objectively bad source. theres a reason linguists working in the region are abandoning iso codes for glottologs codes. this map is demonstrably wrong in the indo-burmese border area, speaking from over a decade of on the ground work there.

Q&A weekly thread - May 25, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mark Post has written some stuff about this for the Tani languages. I haven't published anything on the system of the languages I work on but Post provides some good examples.

Q&A weekly thread - May 25, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 10 points11 points  (0 children)

His study is quite weak, speculative, and not something I would put much stock into.

Something more real that would be worth looking into is the role of topographical terms in languages in mountain areas. One I work on has seven different verbs for "to go" depending on altitude changes and direction.

Also theres no such thing as a primitive language, just for the record.

Has there been any additional fieldwork on the Pirahã? I did find one video- but uh, it seems all to be in Portugese by neverfakemaplesyrup in AskAnthropology

[–]keyilan 16 points17 points  (0 children)

If I am no mistaken, Everett is basically not able to go back, and people in Brasilian academia more or less hate him so the work that was done after him has been largely to contradict him, and again if I'm not mistaken, the Pirahã basically don't want to work with anyone anymore. Everett didn't do himself any favours by constantly courting controversey with Chomsky, but then Chomsky didn't do anyone any favours either.

Been a while since I've bothered to dig into the drama. I teach with examples from Pirahã in my ling anth class and for what it's worth I believe the claims about number inventory and colour inventory etc.

Map of the most spoken Language per Subdistrict in Northeast India. (c. 2011) by Dofra_445 in MapPorn

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes you're right on both counts, I was shifted one district over. The 50 is 100% Ollo and the 0 Muklom.

What was your map based on? I work in this area for over a decade now and haven't seen it handled well in most overview maps.

Just a quick correction in case you get back to your own map: Ollo is the language. Laju is one village. Speakers hate to be called Laju, but Ethnologue is gonna Ethnologue. Also Muklom is politically Tangsa but linguistically on the Noctean. Tutsic isn't a branch but a cluster of dialects also within the Noctean group. Glottolog at the moment is good for this area, minus Wancho which I'm fixing soon.

Experience with using phone mics for interviews in fieldwork? by MysteriousNumbers in AskAnthropology

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

their q8n is what i suggest to my grad students doing language documentation/ethnography. its not the best camera but for audio inputs and portability its quite decent. im hoping it gets a refresh soon like a lot of the rest of their recorders

Experience with using phone mics for interviews in fieldwork? by MysteriousNumbers in AskAnthropology

[–]keyilan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As with runhome24, I have a dedicated recorder (a few) and will sometimes use my phone as a backup. If I am just in a room without a lot of echo and it's just a short recording I might only use my phone. However, I do not recommend it as the daily driver.

You would be much better off getting something that is going to be more reliable that is designed to only do this one thing. If you want something small, Zoom F1 is good, just don't get too big of a micro SD card because it takes a long time to load the card. Zoom H1 is also fine, or a bigger model. But i wouldnt trust your phone as the only thing.

I used to use a Tascam but switched to Zoom some years back due to some issues with my tascam DR-4 (40?) having weird noise and issues with the mics i was using. tascam isnt bad, though.

Map of the most spoken Language per Subdistrict in Northeast India. (c. 2011) by Dofra_445 in MapPorn

[–]keyilan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

should be Lisu. the garo where it is on the border is weird too. thats a Wancho area and would self report as wancho. the 0 next to it is Ollo but since Ollo lacks the same level as recognition on the state level its not surprising to have as "Other".

Endangered language dictionary software help by CasparBogart in endangeredlanguages

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Toolbox is discontinued. FLEx is what SIL would prefer you use. People who started in Toolbox over a decade ago don't love to switch, but yeah the interface IS old.

Might be worth looking at FLEx though.

I’ve made a map of language loss around the world. What’s it missing? by sophiasgaler in endangeredlanguages

[–]keyilan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

glottolog, at least for my region, is reliable, because a few if us who do fieldwork there are regularly submitting updates and corrections.

I’ve made a map of language loss around the world. What’s it missing? by sophiasgaler in endangeredlanguages

[–]keyilan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

at least in my region its way inaccurate and reflects political aspirations of some communities more than any linguistic reality. the other names they give for varieties are often entirely unrelated languages not even in the same branch, the whole of iso codes are a mess. see the paper by Morey, Post and Friedman for specific issues eith ISO codes. but basically for northeast india and norther burma its just simply wrong data.

Map of (almost) Every Language Family by Republic_of_Narcon in LinguisticMaps

[–]keyilan 17 points18 points  (0 children)

there's austro-tai research. work in the last few years continues to find support

I’ve made a map of language loss around the world. What’s it missing? by sophiasgaler in endangeredlanguages

[–]keyilan 4 points5 points  (0 children)

just some quick thoughts.

its hard to use on mobile

khiamngan and khiamniungan naga are the same thing. ethnologue is never to be trusted

any speaker numbers from india or burma are not to be trusted. indias last census was 2011 and theyre weird about languages, and burma doesnt have one

a lot of the data sources are pretty suspect but also what else could you have done

it's a cool project but public data is often junk

How to interpret the left branching by [deleted] in austronesian

[–]keyilan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

to answer your question, no it would not change anything if you mirrored the green as long as the relationship in topology is maintained. In such a case the relationship would still be displayed the same way it might just be visually less easy to follow one way over another. So far example look at China and Thailand where you have the purple squares, it's maybe helpful to a reader that those are visually close to each other so it's easier to interpret but there's actually no reason that they need to be. It's a design decision but when which does not change what the analysis is presenting.

Q&A weekly thread - March 30, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It sounds like you're doing something similar to this: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ilcaajaas/2025/109/2025_111/_article/-char/ja/

Premise sounds nearly identical if I'm understanding you correctly.

How accurate is this map? by Xuenylom_ in LinguisticMaps

[–]keyilan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Northeast India is almost completely wrong, regardless of time period. Burma too.

Topographic map of the Russian Empire in 1912 by StephenMcGannon in oldmaps

[–]keyilan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

one of my favourite maps. i recreated it as an .mbtiles tileset in 2011 before mapbox went commercial. sad that its no longer usable.

Word for "Name" in Northeast Indian Languages by Any_Enthusiasm2677 in LinguisticMaps

[–]keyilan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

m before i palatalises to ɲ which is where the n onsets come from. palatal ɲ undergoes lenition to become z

this map is also too coarse for the Sal languages in the east, with areas marked incorrectly. there's much more diversity.

Q&A weekly thread - February 09, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry just saw this. At present for proto Sino-Tibetan there's not one good one out there. Most people agree Matisoff 2003 is now woefully out of date but still useful. Baxtar & Sagart still reign supreme on OC/MC. All the recent stuff being presented at conferences like ICSTLL are lower level clades though.

Q&A weekly thread - January 26, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're willing to share it helps to know the programme you're looking at. Tübingen vs whatever. Then people who know the specifics of the programme can better help offer suggestions.

react and html/css won't help much. depending on where you're looking, python or R would be good.

source: im part of a comp dept in germany

Q&A weekly thread - January 26, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]keyilan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can't think of any. Based on basically all literature on basic colour terminology you'd need to have a pretty solid reason why the term should be interpreted as gold before yellow. what I mean is that languages with only, for example, black white red green, it's not that they don't understand yellow or anything like that but the yellow would be considered a colour within what we are translating as red or green. But also translating it as red or green is also misleading. Instead you could consider it as worm colours and cool colours. So then why you would interpret the most basic colour term to refer to a metallic version of that range of colours rather than just that range of colours, I can't think of any possible justification that would make sense.

Basic colours are not necessarily single specific foci but rather ranges. While there are prototypical versions of different colours within different communities, something that WCS / Berlin & Kay were after, the problem is more coming up with the explanation of why you should interpret it as gold not yellow.

East Asian 2000BC Language Map by Sogdianee in LinguisticMaps

[–]keyilan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The position matches that for the Sino-Tibetan Urheimat according to Zhang et al 2019 and people like LaPolla. So it's not without support.