BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ILCB - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:ILCB
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.ilcb.fr
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for ILCB
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/Paris
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
TZNAME:CEST
DTSTART:20240331T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:CET
DTSTART:20241027T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
TZNAME:CEST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:CET
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
TZNAME:CEST
DTSTART:20260329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:CET
DTSTART:20261025T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Paris:20250926T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Paris:20250926T153000
DTSTAMP:20260409T101834
CREATED:20250708T091236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250821T092135Z
UID:35976-1758895200-1758900600@www.ilcb.fr
SUMMARY:Cultural evolution creates language-like structure: from humans to humpback whales and beyond
DESCRIPTION:Simon Kirby \nUniversity of Edinburgh \n  \nAll known languages are made up of statistically coherent sequences – words – whose frequency distribution follows a power law known as a Zipfian distribution. Despite the ubiquity of these features across languages their origins are poorly understood. In this talk\, I will argue that they arise because they facilitate learning and therefore emerge through the process of cultural transmission of language. I will summarise results from an experiment in which non-linguistic sequences evolve as they are transmitted from generation to generation of participants. By using insights from infant speech segmentation\, I analyse those sequences and observe the emergence of Zipf’s law over generations. This work makes a prediction that we should find Zipfian distribution of statistically coherent sequences wherever systems culturally evolve\, including in other species. However\, so far these features have only been found in humans. In the second part of the talk I will turn to the culturally evolving song of humpback whales and apply the same analytic technique to 8 years of whale recordings. We show for the first time in another species that these characteristic statistical properties are indeed present in whale song. By doing so\, we demonstrate a deep commonality between two species separated by tens of millions of years of evolution but united by both having culture. Finally\, in the last part of the talk I will present ongoing work on the development of the same features in a third unrelated species. \n 
URL:https://www.ilcb.fr/event/simon-kirby/
LOCATION:Salle des voûtes\, St Charles\, 3 place Victor Hugo\, Marseille\, 13001\, France
CATEGORIES:Talk
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR