BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//talks.cam.ac.uk//v3//EN
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:19700329T010000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:19701025T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CATEGORIES:King's Occasional Lectures
SUMMARY:Language Evolution in Spatial Domains\, and Statis
 tical Physics - James Burridge\, University of Por
 tsmouth
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20181101T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20181101T150000
UID:TALK113449AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/113449
DESCRIPTION:Language is evolving everywhere\, all the time. As
  a result\, people from different parts of a langu
 age area may use their language in quite different
  ways. This geographical variation has often been 
 visualized using “isoglosses”: lines marking the a
 pproximate geographical boundaries of different li
 nguistic features. In this talk I will introduce a
  simple mathematical model in which domains of dis
 tinctive language use emerge spontaneously\, with 
 transition zones in between. I will show that doma
 in boundaries (isoglosses) feel a form of surface 
 tension and are also warped and moved by variation
 s in population density\, allowing us to predict t
 he shapes of distinctive linguistic zones in diffe
 rent countries.  Much of this simplicity arises fr
 om a connection between linguistics and physics: i
 soglosses behave much like domain walls between di
 fferent atomic orderings in certain magnetic or cr
 ystalline materials\, first studied by Ilya Lifshi
 tz (a Russian Physicist) in 1962. I will then desc
 ribe recent developments\, in which continuous spa
 ce is replaced with an embedded network\, and more
  realistic processes describing language dynamics 
 are investigated.
LOCATION:Audit Room\, King's College
CONTACT:Bert Vaux
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR