37.463, Confs: Satellite Workshop at LabPhon20 - Whistled Languages of the World: Phonetic, Phonological, and Neurocognitive Insights into an Alternative Speech Modality (Canada)

Tue Feb 3 16:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-463. Tue Feb 03 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.463, Confs: Satellite Workshop at LabPhon20 - Whistled Languages of the World: Phonetic, Phonological, and Neurocognitive Insights into an Alternative Speech Modality (Canada)

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Date: 01-Feb-2026
From: Michela Russo [michela.russo at univ-aris8.fr]
Subject: Satellite Workshop at LabPhon20 - Whistled Languages of the World: Phonetic, Phonological, and Neurocognitive Insights into an Alternative Speech Modality

Satellite Workshop at LabPhon20 - Whistled Languages of the World:
Phonetic, Phonological, and Neurocognitive Insights into an
Alternative Speech Modality
Short Title: LabPhon20 Satellite Workshop
Theme: Whistled Languages of the World: Phonetic, Phonological, and
Neurocognitive Insights into an Alternative Speech Modality

Date: 29-Jun-2026 - 29-Jun-2026
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact: Michela Russo
Contact Email: michela.russo at univ-paris8.fr
Meeting URL: https://labphon.org/labphon20/whistled

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Language Documentation;
Phonetics; Phonology; Typology

Submission Deadline: 16-Mar-2026

Description:
Whistled languages offer a natural laboratory for studying how human
speech can be acoustically reduced yet remain intelligible. This
interdisciplinary workshop explores their phonetic, phonological, and
neurocognitive dimensions across the world—from Greek Sfyria to Silbo
Gomero and Tashlhiyt Berber. By integrating acoustic analysis,
typology, and recent EEG and behavioral findings, the meeting
investigates how left- and right-hemispheric processes cooperate in
decoding melodic speech signals. Bringing together researchers in
laboratory phonology, cognitive neuroscience, and music perception,
this event aims to advance our understanding of how linguistic
structure adapts to an alternative auditory modality.
https://labphon.org/labphon20/whistled
Organizers:
Michela Russo (CNRS SFL / Université Paris 8 & Université Lyon)
Sophia Katsiouris (Université Paris 8; CNRS SFL)
Keynote Speakers (2 × 1 hour):
 - Rachid Ridouane (LLP, CNRS Paris, in collaboration with Julien
Meyer, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble)
Whistled speech in Tashlhiyt: Perspectives on phonetic and
phonological structure
 - Fanny Meunier (BCL, CNRS, Nice)
>From Music to Speech: The Impact of Musical Training on the Perception
of Whistled Speech
Scope:
Whistled languages constitute a remarkable natural experiment in
speech reduction and adaptation. By transposing segmental and prosodic
cues into a narrow-band acoustic signal (roughly 0.9–4 kHz), they
reveal how linguistic structure can remain intelligible under extreme
physical constraints. Found across diverse linguistic families (e.g.,
Greek sfyria, Spanish Silbo Gomero, Tashlhiyt Berber, Turkish Kuşköy,
Mazatec Oaxaca), whistled systems provide an exceptional window into
phonetic encoding, phonological abstraction, and hemispheric
specialization / brain lateralization in speech processing
Building on recent advances in experimental phonetics and
neuro-phonology, the workshop aims to bring together phonetic,
phonological, and neurolinguistic perspectives on whistled languages,
comparing tonal and non-tonal systems and exploring their implications
for models of speech perception, hemispheric cooperation, and
phonological representation.
We welcome submissions on (non-exhaustive list):
 - Typology of whistled languages: Tonal vs non-tonal systems
 - Acoustic/phonetic encoding (e.g., formant-to-harmonic mapping,
segmental loci)
 - Production, aerodynamics, and articulatory strategies in whistling
 - Perceptual categorization, intelligibility, learning, and expertise
effects
 - Speech–music interface (including musical training advantages)
 - Neurocognitive/neurolinguistic approaches (EEG/MEG/fMRI;
hemispheric specialization)
 - Documentation, endangerment, revitalization, corpora, tools, and
field methods
Contributed talks: 30 minutes total (recommended: 20 min talk + 10 min
discussion)
The program will be balanced across phonetics, phonology, and
cognitive/neuro approaches.
Panel discussion uniting phonologists, phoneticians, and
neuroscientists on “How hemispheric specialization adapts to
alternative speech codes.”
Submission Guidelines:
 - Extended abstract: max. 2 pages, including references (PDF)
 - Please include: title, research question(s), data/methods, main
results, and key references.
 - Submission email: mrusso at univ-paris8.fr &
sophia.katsiouris at univ-lyon3.fr
Important Dates:
Abstract deadline: 16 March 2026
Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2026
Questions:
For queries about fit, accessibility, or scheduling constraints,
contact the organizers: mrusso at univ-paris8.fr &
sophia.katsiouris at univ-lyon3.fr

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