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lvxferre Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

The catarrhine who invented a perpetual motion machine, by dreaming at night and devouring its own dreams through the day.

Posts 27
Comments 2.8K
In case you didn't know
  • What a bunch of muppets. I bet that they don't even know Fermat's last theorem!

  • Nabataean Arabic Readings
  • The way that he's singing them does a lot of the work, but it's clear those inscriptions were made to be sung, not just spoken - and I'm almost sure that those verses are being split into "blocks" of four syllables each. Picking for example the first verse of the last inscription:

    la¹ḥa²ga³ mut⁴ | wa¹laẓ² t̠a³rom

    I probably got the vowels wrong, but what matters is their placement. The bold is for the most obvious syllables, I think that they're long? It's clearly tailored to a rhythm.

    You may have noticed the Paa’ letter. In semitic languages, there is the Pe letter, but when arabic diverged it became just the Faa’ letter.

    That's a really common sound change across languages; [p] seems to lenite faster than other voiceless stops. Other languages showing the same changes are Old Japanese (that /p/ is nowadays /h/ [ɸçh] and Old Armenian (PIE *t *k *kʷ ended as [tʰ kʰ kʰ], but *p ended as [w] or [h]).

    I highly recommend his channel, he has accurate readings and makes some incredible content.

    I can confirm the accuracy based on this video - he got the 1500 Portuguese distinction between [s̻] and [s̪], the retracted [ɫ] and the unraised [e o] just right, even if no modern dialect AFAIK keeps all those features intact.

  • America's Dangerous Movement Toward Oligarchy, Authoritarianism and Kleptocracy
  • There's a difference between being careful to avoid vomiting assumptive claims and mincing words to not state the obvious. Well, this text does the later.

    Let's state the obvious:

    • This movement towards authoritarianism, kleptocracy and oligarchy precedes Musk and his maize tortilla-haired puppet. They're only making it worse.
    • It is not just "authoritarianism". It isn't even just "fascism". It's a specific type of fascism called Nazism. It includes ethnic nationalism, scapegoating internal minorities, the destruction of "power checks" within the government, so goes on. Führer Musk's salute is only a bonus.
  • The second reddit exodus is officially upon us
  • This is great stuff. I'll add a few hints of my own.

    There's no such thing as "global Lemmy admins"; there are the admins of your home instance (where you're registered to) and the admins of the instance where you're posting. It's messier because each group will enforce different rules, but it also means that no group of arseholes can kick you completely out of Lemmy.

    If you're a newcomer odds are that you don't know which would be the best home instance for you. That's completely OK - almost everyone was like this, including me. So if you don't feel satisfied with your home instance, create a new account in another instance and migrate.

    Desktop users might benefit from the extension "Instance Assistant for Lemmy & Kbin" (Firefox link, Chrome link).

    App users: remember when Reddit had a whole rainbow of third party apps to choose from? Lemmy is like this: there's Jerboa (the official one) but also Voyager, Mlem, Boost, and many others. Give this link a check, or just look for "Lemmy" in your app store.

  • How are you doing with your communities?
  • I know. However my "time off" has been a bit too long.

    I think that I'll need to make it a daily duty - at least look for content to post in my comms. Specially for [email protected], I've been neglecting it even harder ;_;

  • [Veritasium] Why Super Glue Is Perfect For Gluing Skin (26:20)
  • Lots of surprisingly useful practical info there, for a Veritasium video*:

    • sand surfaces to make superglue stick better
    • water triggers gluing (more specifically, the polymerisation that glues things together)
    • acetone is your best bet to remove super glue

    I also checked ethyl acetate; local nail polishers are based on that, since acetone has controlled sales (in most Brazilian states you can buy it but there's some bureaucracy involved). Ethyl acetate seems to be okay to remove it, but inferior to acetone.

    *I'm not saying his vids are bad, far from that - they're good. However they're mostly focused on theoretical explanation, not practical stuff.

  • How are you doing with your communities?
  • To be frank I've been a really shitty and sloppy mod. I need to stop being so bloody lazy, and actually promote the communities that I moderate ( [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]) better. I know what I need to do (post stuff to keep the community active), but I haven't been doing it.

  • Of Course It's a Coup
  • More specifically it's an auto-coup; some political figure gets into the power through legal and democratic means, but then gets rid of that political structure so they can stay in power indefinitely.

    A good historical example of auto-coup is Nazi Germany. Hitler tried a "plain" coup in 1923 (the Beer Hall Putsch), but it failed, and he ended in jail. His ascension to power was instead by being elected chancellor / Kanzler of the Weimar Republic, and then creating a "think on the people!!!" edict. Except that the edict gave him the rights to create and enact laws without the approval of the parliament / Reichstag.

    The key difference that I see between Nazi Germany and its spiritual successor is that the "leader" of the successor isn't its actual leader. It's simply too easy to manipulate an idiot who thinks to be powerful, and has an ego bigger than the brain. 2025 USA differs from 1933 Germany in this aspect; it's like if Goebbels was the one actually in power, with Hitler as a simple puppet.

  • Opportunities to promote Lemmy on Reddit?
  • I don't mind it - I shared the SVG for this reason! And I really like what you did there, the text is shorter but it shows better the point of Lemmy ("owned by its users").

    The flashy colours do work better too.

    I've shared your take on the idea in the other thread

  • Lemmy advertisement
  • I think that some bits of advertisement won't flood us with newcomers, at least not now. They'll at most redirect some people discontent with Reddit to Lemmy.

  • Lemmy advertisement
  • I like it too - it's like that "they're the same picture" template, it's silly but you can use it for everything!

  • what’s the opposite of power tripping?
  • The opposite of power tripping would be negligence.

    The ban message is sloppy, and the time to take action was too long, but the actions (ban + removal of comm) were the right call. They probably need more admins, specially to cover hours that others can't.

  • Lemmy advertisement

    I'm sharing this pic because it might be useful, to advertise Lemmy in Reddit meme communities and the likes. It isn't supposed to be a full info dump, just to spread the word that Lemmy exists and give people some room to ask questions about it.

    The copypasta is from @[email protected]. The meme is from @[email protected].

    Here's the source SVG file in case anyone wants to edit it.

    ______________

    EDIT - @[email protected] had a great take on this idea, I need to share it here:

    !

    6
    Opportunities to promote Lemmy on Reddit?
  • I'll share it in the other comm to increase visibility. Thank you for the constructive criticism!

  • Opportunities to promote Lemmy on Reddit?
  • Seems overtly complex

    Fair point. Take 2, now with your short text:

    I think that it's good to explore multiple media to convey the same message.

  • Opportunities to promote Lemmy on Reddit?
  • Look. I do not know if this helps. But if does help, feel free to share.

    Link to the source SVG if anyone wants to edit it.

  • "Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project". Thoughts on this post from Marcan?
  • That doesn't seem to be the case. At least, not from the Rust4Linux devs' side (dunno about Martin, but he's no kernel dev).

  • How similar are expressions and memes?
  • Most of those aren't expressions because they're typically a single word each. They're instead neologisms (skibidi, rizz), interdialectal borrowings (gyatt - it's from AAVE, but apparently used even in other dialects), or giving a new meaning to an old word (Ohio).

    I guess they could be also considered internet memes? I'm not sure.

    I’m also really sorry about this 😅

    Don't feel sorry for that. This comm is about language and its science, and this includes the relation between linguistic phenomena (like expressions) and other stuff, so your question is completely on-topic.

  • Lorem ipsum
  • That's awful! Why don't we use Catullus XVI instead?

  • How similar are expressions and memes?
  • I think that this similarity is because both are subjected to the same type of evolution: you're exposed to the [fixed expression / meme], then as you reproduce it you're also exposing other people to the same thing. This cycle might continue indefinitely, or the thing might go extinct due to some external pressure against it; for example, competition with other [fixed expressions / memes] that seem to be more meaningful for that target audience.

    (In the case of fixed expressions, there's another possible outcome: univerbation. The expression becomes a single word, and is treated as such by the speakers.)

    It's also worth noting that memes are a form of communication. It might not be completely linguistic (as a good meme involves imagery), but it's still close.

    [This is such a weird topic. I love it.]

  • "Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project". Thoughts on this post from Marcan?
  • Didn’t the guy who decides on bringing new languages to the kernel(that’s not Christoph Hellwig) specifically said “do bring Rust to the kernel”?

    Torvalds? Apparently, yes.

  • Rule! Rule! Fight the paw-er!

    7

    Genetic evidence points towards the Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Armenian hypotheses

    phys.org Ancient genomes provide final word in Indo-European linguistic origins

    A team of 91 researchers—including famed geneticist Eske Willerslev at the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Center, University of Copenhagen—has discovered a Bronze Age genetic divergence connected to eastern and western Mediterranean Indo-European language speakers.

    Ancient genomes provide final word in Indo-European linguistic origins

    cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/post/1499265

    What a Christmas present!

    Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical branch of the Indo-European languages. If that branch is real, it means that the Italic and Celtic languages are closer to each other than to other Indo-European languages.

    This hypothesis has been raised multiple times in the past, due to a few shared morphological features between Italic and Celtic languages; for example, the \*-ism̥mo- superlative. But that's on its own weak evidence, so this genomic data makes wonders to reinforce this hypothesis.

    And also to bury the competing (IMO rather silly) Italo-Germanic one.

    Graeco-Armenian is similar to the above, but between the Hellenic languages and Armenian. There were lots of competing hypotheses "tying" both branches to other "random" Indo-European branches; for example I've seen Indo-Greek, Italo-Greek, Armeno-Germanic, Armeno-Albanian...

    6

    It would be problematic if it reminded you something else, wouldn't it?

    In case anyone wonders about the star:

    what you type | what you get --|-- = | ☆ \* | 💢 $ | ⌾ \< | ♡ \> | ▷ @ | ◁

    6

    The Bait Maker and Fish Smoker are game changers.

    1.6 introduced two amazing features to make mad money from fishing.

    Pic related - it's the first Summer, I didn't ship all the fish (I couldn't smoke all of them in time), and I'm making 20kg/day, even being bad at fishing.

    The bait maker is unlocked by Fishing Lv6. It requires 3 iron bars, 3 coral, 1 sea urchin. You put a fish there, and get 5~10 pieces of bait targetting that fish.

    But why would you waste fish to get more fish, instead of using bug meat for the bait? Because you can target the most lucrative fish - like I did with sturgeon there, if I used normal bait I'd be getting carps instead.

    Then there's the fish smoker. The recipe is from Willy's and it costs 10kg. You need 10 hardwood, 1 river jelly, 1 sea jelly, 1 cave jelly.

    The river and sea jellies are not a big deal to get. The hardwood will likely require luck in the mines or an upgraded axe. Cave jelly is a pain, you need to fish in the mines for a while. (Ideally at Lv100, but Lv20 does the trick.)

    But oh wow. It's worth. It doubles the price of the fish, but it keeps quality. Check the iridium quality sturgeon, it's 1200g! Lucrative fish tend to be unruly, but if you fish at good spots you can reliably get gold quality fish; 1.5 from gold quality \* 1.5 from angler profession \* 2.0 from smoking = 4.5 times the original price.

    It does require coal but once you got the cash rolling you can buy it from Clint, that's what I'm doing.

    21
    hub.jhu.edu Evidence of oldest known alphabetic writing unearthed in ancient Syrian city

    Findings suggest alphabetic writing may be some 500 years older than other discoveries

    Evidence of oldest known alphabetic writing unearthed in ancient Syrian city

    Archive link: https://archive.ph/cIz4A

    It's dated to be from around 2400 BCE. The article doesn't clarify if it's a true alphabet or an abjad, but either way it's interesting.

    EDIT: see also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-oldest-alphabet-discovered/ for a less pop-linguistics narrative of the same discovery.

    11

    In canvas 2025, what if we ganged up against the largest country flag, whichever it is?

    [Idea] If you don't want to see huge flags taking space over actual drawings in the Canvas, pick the biggest flag that you can find to deface.

    As long as a lot of people are doing that, the ones templating larger flags will be forced to reduce their layouts and give more room for actual drawings.

    __________________

    [Reasoning] When it comes to country flags, I think that the immense majority of the users can be split into four groups:

    1. The ones who don't want to see country flags at all.
    2. The ones who are OK with smaller flags, but don't want to see larger ones.
    3. The ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of space.
    4. The ones who want to see the whole canvas burning, like the void.

    I'm myself firmly rooted into #1, but this idea is a compromise between #1, #2 and #4.

    Typically #3 uses numbers (and/or bots) to seize a huge chunk of the canvas to their flags. Well, let's use numbers against it then. As long as #1, #2 and #4 are trying to wreck the same flag, we win.

    ___________

    [inb4]

    >But what about identity flags?

    Not a problem. They're typically bands instead of thick squares, and people drawing them are fairly accommodating.

    >But what about [insert another thing]

    Even if [thing] is a problem, it's probably minor in comparison with huge country flags.

    >What should be the template?

    None. We don't need one, as long as everyone is working against the same large flag.

    Just draw something of your choice over the flag, preferably over its iconic features.

    >But I'm not creative enough for that!

    No matter how shitty your drawing is, it's probably still way more original than a country flag. So don't feel discouraged.

    That said, you can always help someone else with their drawing. Or plop in some text. Or just void.

    >Why are you posting this now, you bloody Slowpoke?

    I wish that I thought about this before Canvas 2024. But better later than never. (And better early by a year for Canvas 2025.)

    ____________________

    EDIT: addressing on general grounds some whining from group #3 (the ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of the canvas space).

    You do realise that this sort of "war against the largest flag" should benefit even you, as long as the biggest flag is not the one you're working with, right? Even for you, this makes the canvas a more even level field. Let us not forget that you love to cover other flags with your own.

    60
    www.livescience.com 2,500-year-old slate containing drawings of battle scenes and paleo-alphabet discovered in Spain

    Archaeologists discovered the stone tablet at a Tartessian site in southwestern Spain.

    2,500-year-old slate containing drawings of battle scenes and paleo-alphabet discovered in Spain

    I'm sharing this here mostly due to the alphabet. The relevant region (Tartessos) would be roughly what's today the western parts of Andalucia, plus the Algarve.

    Here are the news in Spanish, for anyone interested.

    The number of letters is specially relevant for me - 32 letters. The writing system is a redundant alphabet, where you use different graphemes for the stops, depending on the next vowel; and it was likely made for a language with five vowels, so you had five letters for /p/, five for /t/, five for /k/. Counting the "bare" vowels this yields 20 letters; /m n s r l/ fit well with that phonology, but what about the other seven?

    2

    Kumoko's children! (Argiope argentata offspring)

    Context: some days ago, I commented in a topic about Argiope bruennichi that I had a similar spider living on my kumquat tree, later identified to be Argiope argentata. And @[email protected] asked for an update, if she laid eggs.

    So, here they are. Sadly I couldn't even notice that she laid eggs, let alone photograph the egg sac. But hey, I got little cute spiders~

    Here's their mum, Kumoko:

    !

    2

    Kika's play time be like:

    7

    Leftover eggs and rice.

    This recipe is great to repurpose lunch leftovers for dinner. It's also relatively mess-free. Loosely based on egg-fried rice.

    Amounts listed for two servings, but they're eyeballed so use your judgment.

    Ingredients:

    • Cooked leftover rice. 200~300g (cooked) is probably good enough. It's fine to use pilaf, just make sure that the rice is cold, a bit dry, and that the grains are easy to separate.
    • Two eggs. Cracked into a small bowl and whisked with salt, pepper, and MSG. Or the seasoning of your choice.
    • Veg oil. For browning.
    • Water. Or broth if you want, it's just a bit.
    • [OPTIONAL] Meats. Leftover beef, pork, or chicken work well. Supplement it with ham, firmer sausages, and/or bacon; 1/2 cup should be enough for two. Dice them small.
    • [OPTIONAL] Vegs. I'd add at least half raw onion; but feel free to use leftover cooked cabbages, peas, bell peppers, etc. Or even raw ones. Also diced small.
    • [OPTIONAL] Chives. Mostly as a finishing touch. Sliced thinly.

    Preparation:

    1. Add a spoonful of veg oil to a wok or similar. Let it heat a bit.
    2. If using raw meats: add them to the wok, and let them brown on high fire, stirring constantly. Else, skip this step.
    3. If using raw vegs: add them to the wok, and let them it cook on mid-low fire. Else, skip this step.
    4. Add the already cooked ingredients (rice, meats, vegs). Medium fire, stirring gentle but constantly; you want to heat them up, not to cook them further. Adjust seasoning if desired.
    5. Spread the whisked egg over your heated rice mix, while stirring and folding the rice frenetically. You want the egg to coat the rice grains, but they should be still separated when done. If some whisked egg is sticking to the wok and/or the rice is too dry, drip some water/broth and scrap the bottom of the wok; just don't overdo it (you don't want soggy rice). Anyway, when the egg is cooked this step is done, it'll give the rice grains a nice yellow colour and lots of flavour.
    6. If using chives, add them after your turned off the fire (they get sad if cooked). Enjoy your meal.

    I was going to share a picture of the final result, but I may or may not have eaten it before thinking about sharing the recipe. Sorry. :#

    1

    Litterbox woes - how to solve them?

    I got a weird problem involving both of my cats (Siegfrieda, to the left; Kika, to the right).

    Kika is rather particular about having her own litterbox(es), and refuses to use a litterbox shared by another cat. Frieda on the other hand is adept to the "if I fits, I sits, I shits" philosophy, and is totally OK sharing litterboxes.

    That creates a problem: no matter if properly and regularly cleaned, the only one using litterboxes here is Frieda. We had, like, five of them at once; and Kika would still rather do her business on the patio.

    How do I either teach Kika "it's fine to share a litterbox", or teach Siegfrieda "that's Kika's litterbox, leave it alone"?

    17

    First languages of North America traced back to two groups from Siberia

    phys.org First languages of North America traced back to two very different language groups from Siberia

    Johanna Nichols, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, has used her pioneering work in the field of language history to learn more about language development in North America. She has found that it can be traced back to two language groups that originated in Siberia. Her paper is pub...

    First languages of North America traced back to two very different language groups from Siberia
    0

    Which species (or at least genus) of orchid is this?

    Context: my mum got some keikis of this orchid from a neighbour. She managed to grow them into a full plant, it even flowered (as per pic), but she has no idea on which species of orchid it is.

    I am not sure if it's a native species here (I'm in the subtropical parts of South America), but it seems to be growing just fine indoors in a Cfb climate.

    Disregard the vase saying "phal azul" (blue phal), it used to belong to another orchid; it doesn't seem to be a Phalaenopsis.

    If necessary I can provide further pics, but note that it has lost the flowers already.

    Any idea?

    _____________

    EDIT: thanks to @[email protected]'s comment, we could find it - it's a Miltoniopsis. Likely from Colombia or Ecuador, not from my area.

    6

    xkcd again, but now on linguists and their weird habits

    I feel slightly offended. Because it's true.

    (Alt text: "Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you're currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out.")

    xkcd source

    27

    Isekai - ani.social community to discuss stories with characters being transported or reincarnated into another world

    Link to the community: [email protected]

    Feel free to join and talk about your favourite series. The rules are rather simple, and they're there to ensure smooth discussion.

    3

    Conhece a piada do pintinho caipira?

    Pir!

    2

    A compendium of the comparative grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin languages (August Schleicher)

    I'm sharing this mostly as a historical curiosity; Schleicher was genial, but the book is a century and half old, science marches on, so it isn't exactly good source material. Still an enjoyable read if you like Historical Linguistics, as it was one of the first successful attempts to reconstruct a language based on indirect output from its child languages.

    0

    Post-Neolithic Diet-Induced Dental Changes Led to Introduction of ‘F’ and ‘V’ Sounds

    www.sci.news Post-Neolithic Diet-Induced Dental Changes Led to Introduction of ‘F’ and ‘V’ Sounds | Sci.News

    A class of speech sounds that is now present in nearly half of the world’s languages -- labiodentals, produced by positioning the lower lip against the upper teeth, such as in ‘f’ or ‘v’ -- are a relatively recent development, one brought about by post-Neolithic diet-induced changes in the human bit...

    Post-Neolithic Diet-Induced Dental Changes Led to Introduction of ‘F’ and ‘V’ Sounds | Sci.News

    Link for the Science research article. The observation that societies without access to softer food kind of avoided labiodentals is old, from 1985, but the research is recent-ish (2019).

    2
    theconversation.com Why AI software 'softening' accents is problematic

    While AI now allows us to erase accents, is this really a good idea? Besides, who doesn’t have an accent?

    Why AI software 'softening' accents is problematic

    Même texte en français ici. I'll copypaste the English version here in case of paywall.

    Accents are one of the cherished hallmarks of cultural diversity.

    Why AI software ‘softening’ accents is problematic

    Published 2024/Jan/11\ by Grégory Miras, Professeur des Universités en didactique des langues, Université de Lorraine

    “Why isn’t it a beautiful thing?” a puzzled Sharath Keshava Narayana asked of his AI device masking accents.

    Produced by his company, Sanas, the recent technology seeks to “soften” the accents of call centre workers in real-time to allegedly shield them from bias and discrimination. It has sparked widespread interest both in the English-speaking and French-speaking world since it was launched in September 2022.

    Far from everyone is convinced of the software’s anti-racist credentials, however. Rather, critics contend it plunges us into a contemporary dystopia where technology is used to erase individuals’ differences, identity markers and cultures.

    To understand them, we could do worse than reviewing what constitutes an accent in the first place. How can they be suppressed? And in what ways does ironing them out bends far more than sound waves?

    How artificial intelligence can silence an accent

    “Accents” can be defined, among others, as a set of oral clues (vowels, consonants, intonation, etc.) that contribute to the more or less conscious elaboration of hypotheses on the identity of individuals (e.g. geographically or socially). An accent can be described as regional or foreign according to different narratives.

    With start-up technologies typically akin to black boxes, we have little information about the tools deployed by Sanas to standardise our way of speaking. However, we know most methods aim to at least partially transform the structure of the sound wave in order to bring certain acoustic cues closer to a perceptive criteria. The technology tweaks vowels, consonants along with parameters such as rhythm, intonation or accentuation. At the same time, the technology will be looking to safeguard as many vocal cues as possible to allow for the recognition of the original speaker’s voice, such as with voice cloning, a process that can result in deepfake vocal scams. These technologies make it possible to dissociate what is speech-related from what is voice-related.

    The automatic and real-time processing of speech poses technological difficulties, the main one being the quality of the sound signal to be processed. Software developers have succeeded in overcoming them by basing themselves on deep learning, neural networks, as well as large data bases of speech audio files, which make it possible to better manage the uncertainties in the signal.

    In the case of foreign languages, Sylvain Detey, Lionel Fontan and Thomas Pellegrini identify some of the issues inherent in the development of these technologies, including that of which standard to use for comparison, or the role that speech audio files can have in determining them.

    The myth of the neutral accent

    But accent identification is not limited to acoustics alone. Donald L. Rubin has shown that listeners can recreate the impression of a perceived accent simply by associating faces of supposedly different origins with speech. In fact, absent these other cues, speakers are not so good at recognising accents that they do not regularly hear or that they might stereotypically picture, such as German, which many associate with “aggressive” consonants.

    The wishful desire to iron out accents to combat prejudice raises the question of what a “neutral” accent is. Rosina Lippi-Green points out that the ideology of the standard language - the idea that there is a way of expressing oneself that is not marked - holds sway over much of society but has no basis in fact. Vijay Ramjattan further links recent collossal efforts to develop accent “reduction” and “suppression” tools with the neoliberal model, under which people are assigned skills and attributes on which they depend. Recent capitalism perceives language as a skill, and therefore the “wrong accent” is said to lead to reduced opportunities.

    Intelligibility thus becomes a pretext for blaming individuals for their lack of skills in tasks requiring oral communication according to Janin Roessel. Rather than forcing individuals with “an accent to reduce it”, researchers such as Munro and Derwing have shown that it is possible to train individuals to adapt their aural abilities to phonological variation. What’s more, it’s not up to individuals to change, but for public policies to better protect those who are discriminated against on the basis of their accent - accentism.

    Delete or keep, the chicken or the egg?

    In the field of sociology, Wayne Brekhus calls on us to pay specific attention to the invisible, weighing up what isn’t marked as much as what is, the “lack of accent” as well as its reverse. This leads us to reconsider the power relations that exist between individuals and the way in which we homogenise the marked: the one who has (according to others) an accent.

    So we are led to Catherine Pascal’s question of how emerging technologies can hone our roles as “citizens” rather than “machines”. To “remove an accent” is to value a dominant type of “accent” while neglecting the fact that other co-factors will participate in the perception of this accent as well as the emergence of discrimination. “Removing the accent” does not remove discrimination. On the contrary, the accent gives voice to identity, thus participating in the phenomena of humanisation, group membership and even empathy: the accent is a channel for otherness.

    If technologies such AI and deep learning offers us untapped possibilities, they can also lead to a dystopia where dehumanisation overshadows priorities such as the common good or diversity, as spelt out in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Rather than hiding them, it seems necessary to make recruiters aware of how accents can contribute to customer satisfaction and for politicians to take up this issue.

    Research projects such as PROSOPHON at the University of Lorraine (France), which bring together researchers in applied linguistics and work psychology, are aimed at making recruiters more aware of their responsibilities in terms of biais awareness, but also at empowering job applicants “with an accent”. By asking the question “Why isn’t this a beautiful thing?”, companies like SANAS remind us why technologies based on internalized oppressions don’t make people happy at work.

    7