Language & Time

Luís Tirapicos, Vera da Silva Sinha, Qiongying Ma, Chris Sinha, Nathalie Gontier

Workshop homepage: https://sites.google.com/view/appeel/events/joint-conf-on-language-evolution-2022/jcole2022languageandtime

The evolution of both timekeeping and language rely on shared cognitive traits and sociocultural practices. This workshop guides participants through evidence on ancient time keeping coming in from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. By drawing on the advances made in archeoastronomy, cultural and cognitive linguistics, and the philosophy of language we examine how this evidence in turn provides insights into the origin and evolution of language.

Confirmed speakers: Luís Tirapicos, Vera da Silva Sinha, Chris Sinha, Qiongying Ma, Chris Sinha, Nathalie Gontier

Luís Tirapicos – Timekeeping and rock art: Evidence from archaeoastronomy and ethnohistory

Vera da Silva Sinha and Chris Sinha – Event-based concepts of time: Evidence from South American languages

Qiongying Ma and Chris Sinha - From event-based time to metric time: Evidence from Ancient Chinese proto-script

Nathalie Gontier - Convergences between timekeeping and language evolution: Evidence from the philosophy of language