Goodbye Old Year, and Hello, Summer!

On April 30, the Department celebrated the end of year with games and snacks, letting the 2023-2024 academic year out with a bang. 

Best of wishes for the summer, and see you all in September!

First Winter in Toronto?

This year, we have quite a few people who have travelled a long way to join our Department and experience their first Toronto winter.  

Samuel, Suzi and Liam checked out Keith Haring at the AGO. 

I hear that the fortune cookies with the meal were a big hit, too!

Rhoda and Nathan had dinner at Si Lom Thai Bistro in the Village then took a stroll to look at the Christmas decorations along Yonge Street and at the Eaton Centre

Celebrating the end of the semester

 Students in LIN 456/1156 put together a delicious fondue party at Naomi's house to celebrate the arrival of snow, the completion of a great set of research projects and the end of classes. 

New skills were shared: how to open an orange, how to grate Swiss cheese, and how to eat more fondue than we thought humanly possible.

Around the table, from the left: Haili, Amanda, Runze, Arshan, Naomi and Aki.

(Photo credit: Craig Diegel)

Virtual Pride Concert featuring Jeremy Dutcher

The University of Toronto is holding a Pride concert featuring two Indigenous performers: Jeremy Dutcher and Nenookaasi, both Two-Spirit. The event is co-sponsored by the Sexual and Gender Diversity Office, Hart House, First Nations House, Office of Indigenous Initiatives, and the UTM Indigenous Centre. Note that while the concert will not be recorded, it will be available via livestream on Tuesday, June 22, from 3 PM through 5 PM, and will be followed by a live question-and-answer session.

Dutcher won the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and a 2019 Juno Award for his bilingual debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, building on anthropological documentation of music from his community:

Jeremy Dutcher is a classically trained operatic tenor and composer who takes every opportunity to blend his Wolastoq First Nation roots into the music he creates, blending distinct musical aesthetics that shape-shift between classical, traditional, and pop to form something entirely new. Dutcher’s debut release, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, involves the rearrangement of early 1900s wax cylinder field recordings from his community. “Many of the songs were lost because our musical tradition was suppressed by the Canadian government. I'm doing this work as there's only about a hundred Wolastoqey speakers left. It's crucial that we're using our language because, if you lose the language, you're losing an entire distinct way of experiencing the world.”

Registration is available here. Students, staff, faculty, librarians, alumni, and friends of the U of T are welcome.

Chalkboard throwback #5: Superheroism (Spring 2011)

Presumably by Christopher Spahr (Ph.D. 2015), who later went as Max Mora for Halloween. 

Or perhaps it was more than a clever costume idea?

Update from Naomi

Naomi Nagy (faculty) has recently brought the holiday spirit into her sabbatical research activities through two talks! One was at the University of Maine on December 4: "How a linguist thinks about chocolate." The other, at the University of Duisberg-Essen on November 14, was: "Intergenerational change in Toronto's heritage languages?" It was part of a special lecture series, as follows:

Halloween wug cookies!

(Photo by Mia Sara Misic.)

Happy Halloween, linguists! Laura Davidson (a graduate student in Speech-Language Pathology) and Mia Sara Misic (MA 2018, now also in Speech-Language Pathology) baked a whole bunch of mummy-wug and Frankenstein-wug cookies - plus some chocolate pops - for the bake-sale in the Sidney Smith lobby earlier this afternoon.

The proceeds went to Hear2Speak, a charity established by Speech-Language Pathology students and faculty at the U of T. Hear2Speak aims to improve the quality and accessibility of speech-language and hearing services around the world. The Halloween bake-sale is specifically supporting underserved clinics in Pakistan with resources and various assessment tools.

Laura and Mia and wug cookies all getting into the holiday spirit. (Photo by Marisa Brook.)

Linguistics Pride 2018

The department was recently decorated for Pride:

Diane Massam in Berlin for a Workshop on Multi Verb Constructions

Diane Massam (Professor Emeritus) was invited to speak on Niuean complex predicates at a Workshop on Multi Verb Constructions in December 2017, organized by the Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft and the Research Unit on experimental syntax and heritage languages (Humboldt University, Berlin). These pictures show the (rather intimidating!) conference venue at Humboldt University, and the great Christmas Market atmosphere of Berlin in December.

A visit from Santa for Eastern Orthodox Christmas

Santa visited the department for Eastern Orthodox Christmas on January 7th!

LVC Holiday Party 2016

LVC celebrated the end of a productive semester and wishes everyone a wonderful holiday (and now a Happy New Year).


Melanie (visiting PhD student), Jack (emeritus prof) and Darcie (post-doc) enjoy the chocolate fondue course


Aaron (asst. prof), Lex and Emily (PhD students) contemplate the cheese fondue course

Fall Convocation 2015

The fall convocation for the School of Graduate Studies took place earlier today. Congratulations to our new graduate alumni:

Ph.D.:
Ailís Cournane
Julie Goncharov

MA:
T. J. Dunn
Frederick Gietz
Paulina Lyskawa
Daniel McDonald
Yining Nie
Katherine Schmirler
Anna Seltner
Luke West

(Photos courtesy of Ailís Cournane and Luke West.)

Ailís's turn!

Celebrating with supervisor Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux.

New MA alumni! Luke West (now at UCLA), Yining Nie (now at New York University),
Frederick Gietz (now in our department's own Ph.D. program), Anna Seltner, and T. J. Dunn.

As befits the Halloween season.

Easter egg hunt!

Happy Easter, linguists! There are 96 eggs hidden around the department. You can find them in the lounge, the library, and the downstairs grad-space. Whether you're an undergrad, grad student, postdoc, faculty member, instructor, or alumnus, feel free to join the hunt!

If you don't want to keep your egg once you've enjoyed your treat, please put them in the box labelled 'eggs' in the department lounge so that they can be used again. Thanks!

(Photos by Keren Rice.)

Happy Holidays

Some scenes from the end-of-term party a few weeks ago:

 Singers and F-zero

 Maestro

 Green tea ice cream cake

 

Nick Welch stealing the show. The picture does not hint at the true magnitude of this moment.

Belated Photos from our Holiday Party

This year's holiday party took place in November! At the time, it seemed a little early for Christmas decorations, and unfortunately F-Zero was unable to perform this year, but it was festive nevertheless. The lounge was filled with linguists, friends of linguists, partners of linguists, and budding linguists. There were so many people in the room that our windows almost looked as though they had a decorative frost! Here are a few pictures from the party! 

Standing room only!

Holiday Party

United in one small department lounge (and the hallway) on December 3rd were faculty, Ph.D. students, visiting students, MA students (including all of the new ones),undergrads, alumni (Dylan, we see you!), staff, and family-members.

Christmas and Hanukkah songs were provided by the ever-reliable F-ZERO, now joined by MA student Christopher Spahr on bass guitar.

Refreshments included an inordinate number of varieties of cheese; and thanks to MA student Maddie Shellgren, we were all treated to the sight (and taste) of a twelve-inch-tall gummy-bear.