SANTIUM LANGUAGE SERIES
Learn About Languages spoken around the world
SCIENTIFIC
American vs. British English: Same Language in Different Voices
In the context of clinical outcome assessments, why is adaptation between British English and American English harder than we expect it to be?
MEDICAL
Beyond English: Why Instructional Language Matters in Rater Training
Most clinicians learned medicine in their national instructional language and can speak or read English, but conversational fluency is not the same as instructional fluency for complex diagnostic constructs.
WORLD'S LANGUAGES
Sign Languages: Soundless Visuospatial Systems
Sign language is iconic, physical and often intensely expressive to convey meaning without sound. It is not a visual representation of its homeland’s spoken language. Sign languages are fully developed natural communication systems with their own grammar and cultural context.
The Accent from Nowhere: How “Received Pronunciation” Became the Voice of Britain
You may not know the term Received Pronunciation, but you have almost certainly heard it. Once considered the “correct” way to speak British English, RP implied better education, authority and elite social class. Today, its modern descendant sounds very different from the voice that once ruled public communication and entertainment.
How to Adapt Proverbs Without Changing What You Measure: A PANSS Case Study
When a proverb becomes part of an assessment, it retains its role as a cultural expression, but it also becomes a measurement stimulus. An item designed to generate evidence about a particular aspect of cognitive functioning: abstract thinking.
The Mayan Script: How Linguists Rediscovered the Maya Ancient Civilization
From the reconstruction of the Proto-Mayan language to the decipherment of ancient glyphs, reverse-engineering through modern Mayan languages unlocked one of the richest historical records in the Americas. It revealed people, cities, arts, sciences, and the vibrant culture behind one of history’s most fascinating civilizations.
How Proverbs Connect Language, Culture and Cognition
Proverbs sit at the intersection of language, culture and cognition. They preserve collective memory, vary in the level of abstract reasoning, and reflect the cultural contexts that formed them, offering enduring wisdom as well as insight into past ways of life, values and survival.
The Bird Song: A Language with Grammar
As a high school student, Toshitaka Suzuki bought a pair of binoculars and began watching birds along his long walks through the forests of Karuizawa, a resort town in the mountains near Nagano, Japan. One species, the tiny Shijukara, kept drawing his attention. Years later, observing this bird led to one of the most intriguing discoveries in the study of language.
The Tibetan Language: Preserving Meaning Across Distance, Evolving Dialect, and Generations
A translation can be accurate and still be misunderstood. Tibetan scholars identified this problem centuries ago. On one of the world’s highest plateaus in one of the harshest remote environments on Earth, Tibetans built an extraordinarily sophisticated educational system and a method designed to test understanding across languages and generations. This method may be history’s closest analogue to what we call Linguistic Validation today.
CLINICAL OUTCOMES
How to Adapt Proverbs Without Changing What You Measure: A PANSS Case Study
When a proverb becomes part of an assessment, it retains its role as a cultural expression, but it also becomes a measurement stimulus. An item designed to generate evidence about a particular aspect of cognitive functioning: abstract thinking.
How Proverbs Connect Language, Culture and Cognition
Proverbs sit at the intersection of language, culture and cognition. They preserve collective memory, vary in the level of abstract reasoning, and reflect the cultural contexts that formed them, offering enduring wisdom as well as insight into past ways of life, values and survival.
Designing Clinical Outcome Assessments for the Next Generation of Global Clinical Trials
Designing clinical outcome assessments is a well-established science. The major regulatory agencies largely converge on that science, although they differ in how explicitly they describe it and how formal their qualification pathways are. The future of clinical outcome assessments is about building better measurement systems.
Adaptive Behavior Is Universal. The Behaviors Used to Measure It Are Not.
Adaptive behavior instruments measure how individuals function in daily life. The domains are universal, but the behaviors used to assess them vary across cultures.
A Brief History of Clinical Outcome Assessments
Clinical outcomes assessments are routinely used across clinical settings. Learn about their developmental history in clinical practice and what to consider before using them in new settings.
LINGUISTIC VALIDATION
How Linguistic Validation Interacts with Measurement Science and AI Translation Models
Linguistic validation is the localization process behind translating clinical outcome assessments. It is a discipline of its own. Clinical outcome measures are not texts. They are sensitive scientific instruments. Every word and phrase are high stakes content.
TECHNICAL
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Instrumenting meaningful outcomes.
