Language
Writing systems, linguistic evolution, speech encoding, language structure, and the historical development of how humans represent and transmit meaning through symbols and sounds.
2 labs in this category
May 2026
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21 May
Continuity Through Handoff
Systems that last for centuries survive by embedding routine actions into daily infrastructure and passing both the action and its meaning to the next generation—when either the protocol or the motivation breaks, the chain ends.
From: Temple housing ‘eternal flame’ burns down in Japan - NBC News
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09 May
Symbol-to-Sound Mapping
A writing system encodes speech when symbols stop representing objects directly and instead represent the sounds in spoken words—a conceptual leap that requires training your brain to ignore meaning and hear sound.
From: A lost ancient script reveals how writing as we know it really began