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wulatum.bsky.social
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@wulatum.bsky.social
1.6K followers 410 following 700 posts
Phonetician, languages of Cameroon and China / 他, wù / pro-international student / back in the US I guess
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wulatum.bsky.social
New tongue twister spotted
Photo of a produce bin filled with, and labeled as containing, "local okra"
September 6, 2025 at 12:13 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
like this
a crudely drawn Freeform (MS Paint for fancy-pants modern Apple people) figure of a person wearing an ultrasound stabilization headset. a mirror is floating to one side and permitting a view of the mouth from two different angles at once when viewed from the front.
August 30, 2025 at 5:32 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
when you decide that yes, you're going to assign your own paper in the grad seminar
The meme of Obama solemnly awarding himself an award, against a regal curtained background somewhere in the White House. (Before there was cheap gold-colored plastic crap glued to all the walls.)
August 29, 2025 at 12:46 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
Dusk, Guamá campus of UFPA
A shot from a sidewalk over the riverbank out over the Guamá river in Belém. It is dusk and streetlights have just come on. People are sitting along the walk with their legs dangling off, mostly silhouettes here. The sky is pinkish and reflected in the river. Some deeper blue shadows or rays are being cast across the sky, one of which lines up with a streetlight almost exactly. Across the river, dark trees.
August 22, 2025 at 12:17 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
Backlog photo from Nasarawa State University, Keffi
A yellow plaster, squared off facade is geometrically arranged across a courtyard and to the right approaching the camera's view point. The photo is taken from the second floor in the courtyard and the floor is not visible. The sky is bright, lightly hazy, and filled with clouds above. One student in a head scarf is visible leaning against the rail of the courtyard, her phone is out and she seems to be taking a picture of the photographer. The photographer is also reflected in a window opposite the courtyard.
August 9, 2025 at 3:47 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
A proper suya to celebrate the last full day of work with Yoro consultants
A white plastic table shot from overhead is covered in unfurled foil packets. Darkly roasted, deep red suya chopped into bite size pieces fills two of the packets, with an especially large amount at the top. Masa (yeasted rice breads) fill the other smaller packet. Three hands are reaching towards various things in the packets.
July 18, 2025 at 9:23 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Trip to Bwari, FCT - pots and local food
A rocky gray hill with trees against a white sky. There are two especially large rocks at the hilltop. The sun is faintly visible behind some haze at the right edge. Bwari Pottery Village, at the edge of Bwari. The picture centers on a large white pillar, beyond which is a brightly lit courtyard which is mostly white. A Nigerian woman holding a phone is standing next to the pillar looking right, out of the frame. She is wearing a white wrap dress with brown details and large decorative glasses. In the courtyard behind and under more verandas, there are tables and shelves completely covered in handmade pots in dark colors, whites, and blues, and other larger urns are scattered around. The Gbagyi delicacy called zhepwo - fufu broken up in cold water, which is drained and eaten out of the ladle, and a sort of salad of chopped raw eggplants, smoked fish, and pepper, eaten by the spoonful alternating with the fufu.
July 14, 2025 at 9:18 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
Pictures from Limbe (SW Cameroon) I forgot to post
A colonial-era church in Limbe Down Beach with two motorcycle taxis crossing on the road in front, under the steeple. The sky is blue and power lines cross overhead in front of the steeple. A view of the ocean from above a resort near the Limbe botanical gardens. A green landmass is visible at far left on the horizon, and a similar island is visible center right on the horizon. On the shore below in the foreground, a cluster of white roofed buildings sits, with an unfinished concrete building to their right. The shore at Down Beach at dusk, facing the ocean. Everything is tinted a pastel orange color due to the setting sun. Black sand and rocks on the shore are visible in the foreground. Against the horizon an island and its trees are visible in silhouette. In the middle ground, surrounded by low waves, are a row of rocks silhouetted against the water, on which a man and a woman are visible as very small figures, about two meters apart. The man is standing straight with his arms against himself, and the woman is spreading her arms as if balancing or beginning to make some gesture.
July 13, 2025 at 8:22 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
So long Douala, hello Abuja
A picture snapped out of a plane window, over the right engine, as it takes off. A thick forest is visible on the ground nearest the plane. Further out, there is a neighborhood of Douala with a large number of white metal-roofed buildings arranged irregularly up to the edge of a small river. More forest is beyond that, and a gray sky past that. A picture out the same plane window on the tarmac at Abuja airport. A taxiing lane curves away and to the right, with the terminal visible behind. A steep rocky hill stands out in the far distance.
July 10, 2025 at 7:16 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Under the mountain
Mt. Cameroon in the distance shrouded in clouds. The sky is partly cloudy and bright. The foreground is a dirt path leading into the bush.
June 21, 2025 at 12:50 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
super helpful clarification there
Bare bones "error" page that reads: "Access denied, Error 16" with a timestamp below. The notice helpfully explains that "This request was blocked by our security service". There is no way provided to contact customer support, because they don't care.
June 17, 2025 at 6:43 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Fwonss
A picture of an orange sun in an orange sky over the river Seine in Paris, from a bridge between the Rive Gauche and the Île de la Cité. A row of buildings curves away into the distance to the right. People are milling about on the bridge in the foreground, looking at the sunset.
June 4, 2025 at 5:25 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
"Will the John Birch Society be making anime real?"
X post from the John Birch Society (because we're in hell already, sure, why not) saying: Yes, hello The John Birch Society is pleased to announce a new wave of upcoming content, highlights, and material in the works Refill your popcorn. You're going to love this next part A possibly photoshopped image follows, of Tucker Carlson at his Fox News desk gleefully laughing, with the inset news graphic showing the smirking chad bodybuilder guy from the meme in sunglasses and a button-down shirt with the buttons undone, next to a cheering anime girl. A response, from New Hampshire republican state representative Michael Granger through his official account, is posted below: "will the John Birch Society be making anime real?"
April 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
you know, I think that we as a society don't give enough respect to this kind of hating
Screen cap of NYT article on Cory Booker's marathon speech on the Senate floor, which notes: "By Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Booker appeared to be pressing to break a record set by Senator Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 delivered a 24-hour-18-minute filibuster opposing a piece of civil rights legislation. Mr. Booker, who for weeks had contemplated giving a marathon floor speech, has long been bothered that Mr. Thurmond, a segregationist from South Carolina, held the record, according to Mr. Booker’s office. (The Senate’s log of longest speeches does not reach back to the founding of the nation, but Mr. Thurmond’s is the longest on record.)"
April 1, 2025 at 9:57 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
hold on, I missed the good stuff. you can "compound" two minimal pronouns (in various combinations not already represented by an augmented pronoun) to refer to groups of precisely two people, *and* nouns can be compounded in! the compositional semantics get complex (note 13a)
table 13, showing subject pronouns compounded with nouns: yúwū Búŋ "1+2 and Bung", wyè wàyn "you sg. and the child", wɛ́ kyìí "3sg and women"
December 5, 2024 at 7:58 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Babanki, like a lot of other languages of the area, has a relatively complex system of grouping pronouns that seems to work well with a "minimal"/"augmented" division of pronouns rather than "singular"/"plural", since "plural" is not precise enough!
Table 3 from the linked paper: "Babanki basic subject pronouns arranged according to minimality versus augmentation." The usual 1/2/3 person rows have a "1+2" row added, and rather than the two columns being "singular" versus "plural", a "minimal" versus "augmented" (which adds some number of third-person referents) is shown.
December 5, 2024 at 4:19 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Possible eggcorn spotted in the wild 🐦🐦
A sign is in the middle of a planted garden bed in front of a wrought iron fence. The egg corn at top reads: "GARDENS S E W N, MANAGED, AND SPONSORED BY:"
September 29, 2024 at 9:23 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
I lack perspective on this, and the relevant studies I can locate and read are often not specific about *how* signers are prompted to produce, e.g. Tyrone & Mauk (2010) doi.org/10.1016/j.wo..., who just say "asked to produce" here.
Excerpt from Tyrone & Mauk 2010, Sign lowering and phonetic reduction in American Sign Language (Journal of Phonetics): "section 2.2, Procedure. Participants were asked to produce these utterances at three signing speeds. For the first speed, the signer was asked to sign at a normal conversational speed. Then the signer was asked to sign faster, being careful not to sign as fast as possible, since that would be the final signing speed. Signers were allowed to set their own pace based on these instructions and were not coached more specifically on how fast they should sign. The participants in the study found these directives easy to interpret and follow."
September 13, 2024 at 11:33 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
Not to be a stickler, but isn't this just... consciousness
Picture of a computer screensaver for "Brain Awareness Week", depicting a rainbow colored brain with whorls of rainbow colors unfurling behind it
March 18, 2024 at 5:38 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
not at LSA, but I want to plug the poster by Tianle Yang (grad student of mine at UB) and Phil Rose on Friday - shows for Jinshan Wu (closely related to Shanghainese) an unusual mixture of left- and right- dominant sandhi dependent on the specific tone combination. go give it a look! 🐦🐦 #lsa2024
f0 tracks showing the results of sandhi in /high fall + high fall/ items as mid-high rising [34] followed by high fall [51], with a voiced onset (blue) and voiceless onset (red) on the second syllable. the thick dotted line shows the high-fall tone [51] in isolation. the title area of the poster - "Diagnosing Dominance: Problematic sandhi types in the Chinese Wu dialect of Jinshan". by Tianle Yang (University at Buffalo) and Phil Rose (independent, ANU emeritus).
January 5, 2024 at 5:01 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
my first thought: a PSA on the dangers of debuccalization #linguistics
four or five-foot tall, orange and white capital letters spelling "BOS ON", with the "T" missing, standing in front of a wall in Logan Airport. I have photoshopped in the missing "T" as a glottal stop.
December 19, 2023 at 8:34 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
just out in JIPA: me and Jeremy Steffman on voiced aspirates in Yemba (Grassfields Bantu, Cameroon). doi.org/10.1017/S002...

we find that these are actually voiced during closure, then voiceless aspirated at release, previously not thought to be possible for stop voicing 1/3
spectrograms with textgrid alignments for [ndʉ̏] 'raffia string' versus [ndʰʉ̏] 'boundary'. the spectrogram for 'boundary' shows a lack of voicing at the release of the (otherwise voiced) stop. waveform and electroglottograph data for 'raffia string' and 'boundary', again showing that there is a voiceless period at the release of the consonant in 'boundary'.
November 9, 2023 at 2:55 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
brand new sentence!
screencap of text from a NYT article, reading: "The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam stopped giving out Pokémon cards inspired by the Dutch artist after fans of the game caused a frenzy in the gift shop and scalpers positioned themselves outside the building."
October 20, 2023 at 3:12 AM
wulatum.bsky.social
same energy
a small two row by three column table. the top row contains the numbers "10", "100", and "1000" written in numerals. in the bottom row, these are written out in letters as "ten", "teen" (two E's), and "teeen" (three E's).
September 30, 2023 at 8:19 PM
wulatum.bsky.social
structural ambiguity of the day, #linguistics strikes again
over a grayscale map of Texas, a pop up window reads: "Increasingly complex oil wells are sweeping across Texas, birthplace of the fracking revolution, and the nation." The pop-up indicates that black marks on the map refer to fracking sites.
September 25, 2023 at 9:53 PM