Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world's languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world's most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

Uncovering the acoustic vowel space of a previously undescribed language: The vowels of Nambo

This study presents the first acoustic description of the vowel space of a Papuan language-Nambo, spoken in southern Papua New Guinea-based on duration and first and second formant measurements from 19 adult male and female speakers across three age groups (young, middle-aged, senior). Phonemically, Nambo has six full vowels /i, e, æ, ɑ, o, u/ and a reduced vowel tentatively labeled /ə/. Unlike the full vowels, the quality of /ə/ showed great variation: seniors' and young females' realizations tended to be more open and retracted than those by young males, while middle-aged speakers' productions fell between these two variants.

[Accelerated fractionation]

Accelerated repopulation is a reason for loco-regional failure after radiotherapy for head and neck carcinoma. Accelerated fractionation(AF) is a radiotherapy regimen reducing the total treatment time, with the aim of counteracting tumor cell repopulation. AF administers the same or a similar total dose as conventional treatment in a reduced overall time by giving conventionally-sized or smaller fractions more than once daily. Several different clinical trials on AF have proved to be of benefit in loco-regional control, although no benefit in survival was generally detected. The metaanalysis of altered fractionated radiotherapy in head and neck cancer has showed a benefit with AF with conventional fractionation(CF). However, the magnitude of the survival benefit is lower with AF than with hyperfractionation (HF). In particular, AF using reduced total doses or a split course does not improve treatment benefits. AF that employs continuous RT schedules, without compromising the total dose, improves local control. More data on this AF regimen are needed. Acute morbidity is significantly more frequent with AF. Whether late toxicity is also worse with AF is unclear. Some trials suggest no increase in late toxicity, while others suggest the opposite. The effect of AF seems to be greater for the primary tumor than for the metastatic lymph-nodes. Also, the reduction of the treatment time is more beneficial in well- to moderately-differentiated tumors.