Event Dates: 19 March 2012
Event Location: Tokyo, Japan
Event URL: http://tokyoforum.evolutionarylinguistics.org/

The Tokyo Evolutionary Linguistics Forum is being organized as a venue to extend discussions on any interesting issues raised at this years 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (Evolang9) which is being held form the 13th to 16th of March in Kyoto. It is hoped that the event will stimulate interest in this burgeoning field of study in the Tokyo academic community, and lead to ongoing collaborations between local and international researchers.

Invited Speakers:
-Bart de Boer (University of Amsterdam)
-Erica Cartmill (University of Chicago)
-Rafael Núñez (University of california, San Diego)
-Thom Scott-Phillips (University of Edinburgh)
-Monica Tamariz (University of Edinburgh)
-Jordan Zlatev (Lund University)
+More to come

Important Details  
Date: 19th March 2012
Venue: Komaba Campus, The University of Tokyo 
Cost: Free
Registration: On site
Language: English
Website: http://tokyoforum.evolutionarylinguistics.org/

Call for Commentators: 15 October 2011
Event Date: 15 -18 December 2011
Event Location: Durham, UK
Event URL: http://www.dur.ac.uk/conference.booking/details/?id=97

Grammar is universal in human populations, pathologies aside. A theory of grammar should thus be a universal theory in this sense. Yet it is widely contended today that it need not be the theory of Universal Grammar (UG), in the sense of its early generative formulations, which have taken UG to be a linguistically specific and species-specific biological endowment consisting of functionally arbitrary formal rules. Theories of universal grammar have also been formulated in a number of different ways in the past, with far from identical underlying axiomatic assumptions. Furthermore, the modern theory of UG itself is currently undergoing a significant reformulation, following the development of Minimalism. This conference aims to provide a forum for assessing and (re-)directing the course that research on universal grammar and the biological foundations of language should take over the coming years and decades, bringing together linguists, psychologists, philosophers, and biologists.

Call for Commentators:

We hope to offer a conference fee waiver plus financial help towards accommodation and/or travel costs to all commentators. The call for commentators will be released in August.

Sorry for the late update on this, it is passed the submission deadline, but this may still be of interest to people in the area.
Event Dates: 16-18 September 2011
Event Location: Shanghai, China
Event URL: http://comonca.org.cn/ee/ee-en.htm

Along with the developments in the fields of anthropology in East Asia, many data and much knowledge have been accumulated recently in molecular anthropology and linguistic anthropology, shedding lights on the origin and diversification of the human populations in the Far East. Communications among the subfields are eagerly required to share the knowledge and draw more detailed conclusions on the human population histories. Since the first International Meeting of Linguistic Evolution and Genetic Evolution was hold in 2005 successfully, the second meeting will be necessary to discuss the new data and new results. Therefore, we sincerely invite you to the meeting to be hold in this September in Shanghai.

Language: Chinese, English

Program:
   1) Phylogeny of Sino-Tibetan;
   2) Phylogeny of Daic and Austronesian;
   3) Linguistics and genetics of the North Asians and Southeast Asians;
   4) Computation and Statistics Methods.

Fields including: Evolutionary Linguistics, Molecular Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, Forensic Anthropology, Genetic Structure of World Populations.

Several famous linguists and geneticists will be invited for plenary lectures.

Call deadline: 15 May 2011
Event Dates: 8 August 2011
Event Location: Paris, France
Event URL: http://www.fcg-net.org/events/AAALE_2011.html

This workshop brings together researchers that are attempting to simulate the emergence and cultural evolution of communication systems with properties similar to those found in human natural languages. The workshop focuses in particular on experiments that use physically embodied humanoid robots and target communication systems that exhibit grammatical structure and involve rich grounded conceptualizations of the world co-evolving with language. A typical example would be an experiment in which autonomous robots evolve a spatial language to express spatial relations and perspective reversal or an experiment in which a case grammar emerges for expressing the role of participants in events, or an experiment in which a system of determiners arises to refer to sets of objects in the shared context of two situated communicating agents.

Call for Contributions

Contributions are solicited on all aspects of this grand challenge. They should preferably be based on mechanisms that have been effectively implemented and demonstrated to work on real robots. Although aspects of perception and motor control are obviously very relevant to evolve grounded language, the workshop will primarily focus on issues related to conceptualization and grammar, and to models of cultural evolution that are effective for explaining the complexity of human languages. Experiments that simulate or relate to phenomena observed in human language evolution are particularly encouraged. Posters may include robot videos and demonstrations with physical robots are welcome.

More specifically, submissions are solicited on the following topics:

- Systems for conceptualization, grounded in sensori-motor experience
- Co-evolution of category formation and lexicon formation
- Computational formalisms supporting emergent grammar
- Factors driving the cultural emergence of grammatical systems
- Mechanisms for conceptual and linguistic alignment
- Origins and stabilization of language strategies
- Competition and coordination between language strategies
- Autonomous evolution of scripts for language games
- Semiotic dynamics of embodied agents
- Origins of speech systems

These topics should as much as possible be grounded in case studies.

Call deadline: 1 May 2011
Event Dates: 29 June -03 July 2011
Event Location: Montpellier, France
Event URL: http://www.hbes2011.univ-montp2.fr/index.php

The 23nd annual meetings of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society will be held at Montpellier, France from June 29th to July 3rd, 2011. 

Along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in southern France, Montpellier has everything it takes to please. A lively and surprising city in the heart of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, Montpellier is vibrant, elegant and artistic. People are drawn here by the city's rich past, former and contemporary glory, intense cultural life and youthful feel. Its sunny climate and well-preserved historical environment are second to none, nestled between the sea, vineyards and mountain landscapes. As a result of Montpellier's long university tradition, nearly 70,000 students reside in the immediate area. Because of this youthful influence, or rather thanks to it, there is an abundance of festivals, cafés and other encounters just waiting to happen. Known internationally for its world-class medical schools, whose long-standing tradition dates back the middle ages, Montpellier is well practiced in the art of welcoming people.

We are pleased to announce that this year's Keynote Address will be presented by Randy Nesse, and that Plenary Speakers include Samuel Bowles, Sarah Hdry; Jean-Marie Hombert, Tim Clutton-Brock, Frank Marlowe and Andrew Whiten.

Two somewhat informal announcements following the conclusion of Evolang8 last week.

Firstly, Evolang9 will be held at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan in 2012. Although dates are not yet confirmed, it is tentatively set to run from the 13th to 16th of March. Further details will be posted here as they are announced.

Secondly, it was also announced that a sequel to last years Ways to Protolanguage will be held in September 2011, again in Toruń, Poland. Protolang2 aims to be a highly multidisciplinary event featuring work on all aspects of early human language evolution and if it is anything like last years event, it will be well worth attending. Details will be announced at a future date.