Despite a period of almost two decades in which quantitative approaches in historical linguistics have been increasingly used, gaining constantly more popularity even among predominantly qualitatively oriented linguists, we find many problems in the field of computational historical linguistics, which have only sporadically been addressed. In the…[Read more]

Handouts the author developed for classes in Japan requiring papers in English, from regular undergraduate EFL classes to graduate school international classes. Page 1 A) Outline of an Academic Paper: necessary elements, color-coded to show connections between parts of a paper; and B) Abstracts: often confused with introductions, need to stand…[Read more]

Short audio to download, introduces Keisei Awa no Naruto, a Bunraku puppet play, followed by discussion questions for educational use. This 18th Century Chikamatsu play plumbs the depths of pathos with Sophoclean fatalism, leaving the listener wondering, among other things, why such a drama of ‘mono no aware’ is still performed as a puppet play.…[Read more]

Handout for the 2005 Conference on Pedagogies and Learning: Meanings under the Microscope, held at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. A framework was sought for understanding concepts in new disciplines in their full dimensionality. Citing Plato’s Socrates, the nature of knowledge was examined, locating it not in information…[Read more]

By comparing the languages of the world, we gain invaluable insights into human prehistory, predating the appearance of written records by thousands of years. The traditional methods for language comparison are based on manual data inspection. With more and more data available, they reach their practical limits. Computer applications, however,…[Read more]

A gripping legend about the origin of the Pilgrimage of Shikoku seems to prove reincarnation. This five-minute podcast recounts the miracle story, then poses discussion questions that could, and have been, used educationally with groups to get at the underlying motive and purpose of the legend.

While the evolution of spoken languages is well understood and has been studied using traditional historical comparative methods as well as newer computational phylogenetic methods, evolutionary processes resulting in the diversity of contemporary sign languages are poorly understood, and scholars have been largely unsuccessful in grouping sign…[Read more]

Three parts of a 2014 presentation at the National Museum of Ethnology Linguistics Circle in Osaka are compiled in this PDF file. 1st page: Abstract of the presentation “A Multidimensional Approach to Definitions, Applied to e-Learning in Language Education”; 2nd page: Chart “Contextualizing fields and terms in their fuller dimensionality: Example…[Read more]

Invited presentation and handouts for Meaning of Existence seminars in the University of Hawaii system in 1978: The Awakening of Dreams: Types of Dreams, Symbolic Languages, Psychology of Tantric Yoga; Primer in Jungian Psychology: Layers of the Psyche, Brain wave frequencies, Personifications appearing in dreams, Functions of Consciousness; Dream…[Read more]

The rationale behind this research was the quest to explore the policies, practices, techniques and strategies for audiovisual and digital media in developing countries experiencing tropical climates, given the fact that countries in developing countries are lagging behind in technology due to the cost attached to the implementation of…[Read more]

Haiku poems published in Japanese and English periodicals in the 1980s, arranged into the four seasons, now with photos of Kyoto where the author often walks. The bilingual haiku were often composed in Japanese, 5-7-5 syllables, out in nature. Then an English version could either stand alone or complement the Japanese version and provide language…[Read more]

A multilingual podcast, recorded in August 2005 by native speakers of English, Japanese, and Chinese, found proverbs with a similar meaning in each culture. The author arranged this podcast during a Translation class between Japanese and English with fourth year students at Shinonome University in Matsuyama, on Shikoku island in Western Japan.

The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world’s largest
and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people.
Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their pre-history remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when
and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we
develop a database of c…[Read more]

We present a fully automated workflow for phylogenetic reconstruction on large datasets, consisting of two novel methods, one for fast detection of cognates and one for fast Bayesian phylogenetic inference. Our results show that the methods take less than a few minutes to process language families that have so far required large amounts of time…[Read more]

We present a fully automated workflow for phylogenetic reconstruction on large datasets, consisting of two novel methods, one for fast detection of cognates and one for fast Bayesian phylogenetic inference. Our results show that the methods take less than a few minutes to process language families that have so far required large amounts of time…[Read more]

On applying the language learning method “Where Are Your Keys?” (WAYK) to the teaching of Western Armenian at a community weekend school.

On applying the language learning method “Where Are Your Keys?” (WAYK) to the teaching of Western Armenian at a community weekend school.

This set of lesson plans is the result of a two-day planning workshop to develop a cross-institutional framework for promoting broadly collaborative, community-based undergraduate and graduate student research employing the tools and methods of digital humanities. The goal was to expand on established faculty dialogues and initiatives at each…[Read more]

This presentation was part of the Reframing History: Public Digital Humanities and the Making of New Civic Narratives
Panel at the conference.

Panel description: Showcasing generative digital scholarship and public humanities practice, this panel will explore efforts to radically reframe local and regional histories of Central Florida and…[Read more]

3D prints have been promised as a saviour of material truth, a path to universal primary source accessibility. By replicating a Babylonian tablet using several 3D print technologies, we show that 3D scanning and printing are as fraught as any other representational technology. The scans and prints alike feature technological infidelities, some of…[Read more]