A video of 19-month-old Orla from Liverpool has gone viral, reaching more than 19 million views on TikTok. In the clip, babysitter Olayka is trying to coax Orla into having a nap. Orla, however, wants to stay up and protests in babbling sounds – with a distinct Liverpool English (“scouse”) accent. Behind this adorable exchange, important processes of language acquisition are at work. Here is what science says about the importance of babbling and how it is linked to accents. Baby babbling is an important milestone in children’s language development. It is a way for children to explore and practice…
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Meany has a point. Throughout the history of American film, Irish characters are often played by American accents, and they wouldn’t always do their dialect homework. In the American acting community, a broad, all-in-one Irish accent began to emerge, and it was an accent that no one actually had. Meany pointed out: “What we’re talking about here is: there’s a history in American films of Irish characters having these dreadful, dreadful, non-existent kind of accents. ‘Oh, top o’ the marnin’, top o’ the marnin’! Oh, sir Jesus Christ, oh dear Lard!’ And it’s all sing-song like that, you know. But…
“It is especially difficult to reconcile the European Union’s efforts to end impunity for embezzlers with Spanish legislators’ desire to excuse particularly grave crimes simply because they were committed by specific political leaders during a specific period of time,” the ruling reads. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Ana Ferrer proposed that Spain’s Supreme Court submit its ruling to the European Court of Justice to determine if its reasoning was correct. The rest of the magistrates rejected this option. As a result of the ruling, the long-standing arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium following the failed referendum, will remain…
Special to the Japan Times As host of last week’s Group of 20 summit and the upcoming 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Japan has had many reasons to focus on the security of the nation’s cyberdefenses. For their part, the Japanese public worries that cyberattacks from other countries pose a major threat, and they have doubts about their government’s preparedness for dealing with an attack of this kind. As a 2018 Pew Research Center survey of Japanese public opinion highlights, 81 percent say attacks on computer systems launched from other countries are a major threat to Japan. Such fears are…
Family is preeminent for most publics but work, material well-being and health also play a key role What do people value in life? How much of what gives people satisfaction in their lives is fundamental and shared across cultures, and how much is unique to a given society? To understand these and other issues, Pew Research Center posed an open-ended question about the meaning of life to nearly 19,000 adults across 17 advanced economies. From analyzing people’s answers, it is clear that one source of meaning is predominant: family. In 14 of the 17 advanced economies surveyed, more mention their family…
The human body today has many replaceable parts, ranging from artificial hearts to myoelectric feet. What makes this possible is not just complicated technology and delicate surgical procedures. It’s also an idea — that humans can and should alter patients’ bodies in supremely difficult and invasive ways. Where did that idea come from? Scholars often depict the American Civil War as an early watershed for amputation techniques and artificial limb design. Amputations were the most common operation of the war, and an entire prosthetics industry developed in response. Anyone who has seen a Civil War film or TV show has…
I am delighted that the State Visit of Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan has concluded so successfully. This visit to the UK was made possible after several years of preparation starting in 2019, and I feel extremely honoured to have been involved in such a historic event. The visit to the UK came at a truly auspicious time for UK-Japan relations. As His Majesty the Emperor said in his speech at the State Banquet, the UK and Japan are ‘friends like no other’ and our relationship has never been stronger. Our partnership spans trade, security, science and…
Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs James C. O’Brien will travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, and Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 27-29. In Baku, Assistant Secretary O’Brien will meet with senior Azerbaijani government officials, including Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, to highlight progress in the U.S.-Azerbaijan bilateral relationship and U.S. support toward the conclusion of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Assistant Secretary O’Brien will also meet with members of civil society to reiterate the urgency of Azerbaijan adhering to its international human rights commitments. Assistant Secretary O’Brien will then travel to Dubrovnik, Croatia, to attend the…
With the current buzz around artificial intelligence (AI), it would be easy to assume that it is a recent innovation. In fact, AI has been around in one form or another for more than 70 years. To understand the current generation of AI tools and where they might lead, it is helpful to understand how we got here. Each generation of AI tools can be seen as an improvement on those that went before, but none of the tools are headed toward consciousness. The mathematician and computing pioneer Alan Turing published an article in 1950 with the opening sentence: “I…
Commonly known as Australia’s “Easter bunny” due to its large ears and hopping movement, the greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is the last of its kind. Today we published its reference genome – all 3.66 billion pieces of it. Published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, it is the largest marsupial genome to date. Not only is it bigger than the koala genome, it’s even bigger than that of humans. A genome is the entire set of DNA – the building blocks of life – holding the genetic code for what makes a species what it is. So, what is…