This study is part of general research in language learning and evolution at the Unviersity of Edinburgh's Centre for Language Evolution. The broad goal of the research is to tell us more about how language evolved.

What can Ferros tell us about language evolution?

The Ferro study is a new kind of Artificial Language Learning study. Artificial languages are small language systems created by researchers to provide insights into how real languages are learned and evolve over time. Ferro are different because thy examine how participants learn a completely artificial language - when you learn Ferros, you’re not just learning words you’ve never seen before, you’re learning entire symbols you’ve never seen before. In other words, you’re learning a whole new way of making signals. In written language the signal units are the letters of the alphabet, and in spoken language it's the sounds of a language. In a traditional artificial language learning experiment, even though you learn words you’ve never seen before, you immediately know something about them by virtue of already knowing how to speak and read - for example, you can easily pronounce "blick", even though you've probably never seen the word before.

There’s another twist: when you learn and reproduce a Ferro sequence, that sequence didn’t come out of nowhere - it’s the output of another participant. In other words, the sequences you learn are sequences produced by the last ‘generation’ of Ferro learners when they were playing the game. Although a small set of sequences were initially set by the experimenters, most of them were produced by other players. 

This means the sequences are changing over time in systematic ways: sequences that are difficult to learn or produce will not be transmitted faithfully to the next player, and will change rapidly. When a learner makes an error in producing a symbol, that ‘mistake’ may in fact be easier for the next person to learn, and could represent a new feature which persists in the Ferro sequences through several ‘generations’ of future participants. Processes like this play a role in large scale language change.

Using more traditional written artificial languages, several studies have shown that miniature languages ‘evolve’ over ‘generations’ of participants to have features that are easier for participants to learn more faithfully.  Using Ferros, we aim to show that a space of entirely novel symbols is subject to similar constraints, showing that processes of cultural evolution can operate rapidly even on languages with completely alien signals.

Where did Ferros come from? The Ferros are symbols that were made as a decorative font in collboration between Linden Gledhill and Craig Ward. They are made uisng ferrofluid ink - ink which has tiny pieces of metal in it, causing the ink to form different shapes when exposed to magnets. The font was released to backers as part of a KickStarter project in late 2015.

If you're interested in hearing about the results of the study, and getting information about other Ferro gams as they are released, contact Dr. Christine Cuskley, the lead researcher, at ccuskley at gmail dot com.