The diet of non-breeding male Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) was investigated at four localities in the South Shetland Islands (Deception Island, Potter Peninsula, Duthoit Point and Harmony Point) through analyses of 1254 scats collected from 1995 to 2004. Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), fish and penguins were the main prey items at the four study locations. Antarctic krill was the main prey by mass at Potter Peninsula and Deception Island, while fish and penguins dominated at Duthoit Point (except in 2000, when the Antarctic krill was the main prey) and Harmony Point, respectively. Among fish, myctophids, mainly Gymnoscopelus nicholsi and Electrona antarctica, contributed most by mass to the diet of the fur seals at all the localities. Pleuragramma antarcticum, formerly an important fish prey species at the South Shetland Islands in the 1980s, and Gobionotothen gibberifrons and Notothenia rossii, both targeted species in the fisheries of the past, were absent or scarcely represented in the diet of the fur seals. The results encourage using the diet of Antarctic fur seals to monitor the distribution/abundance of myctophids and P. antarcticum.

Encephalitis lethargica (EL), also known as the ‘European Sleeping Sickness’, emerged in Europe around 1916, with Sweden reporting the highest global incidence rate in 1921. This study investigates regional variations in EL incidence across Sweden between 1920 and 1930, with a particular focus on the major outbreak in 1921. Using data from Public Health in Sweden, incidence rates were calculated for all Swedish regions, revealing a disproportionate concentration of cases in central and northern areas, especially in the parish of Vilhelmina in Västerbotten. To contextualize this outbreak, monthly disease data from the Annual Reports of the Chief Provincial Doctor in Västerbotten were analysed to compare the local disease panorama. Notably, preceding the first EL cases in Vilhelmina, influenza/H1N1 and mumps were frequently reported. Although the aetiology of EL remains unresolved, the presence of a preceding influenza and mumps epidemic is consistent with the dual-pathogen hypothesis, suggesting that interactions between infectious agents may have contributed to the emergence of EL in local hotspots.

New Orleans English (NOE) demonstrates a distinctive combination of NYC-linked and South-linked linguistic features. In a matched guise dialect classification task, listeners were presented with NOE audio featuring either only NYC-linked features, only South-linked features, or a combination of the two, and asked to identify where the speaker was from. When faced with only NYC-linked features or only South-linked features, listeners consistently identified the speaker as being from the targeted locale and accessed associated social stereotypes—suggesting that, in isolation, these NOE features are indeed perceived as being linked to NYC and the South, respectively. When presented with conflicting linguistic cues, listeners enacted several strategies: “settling” on a geographic identification aligned with one or more of the linguistic cues and ignoring incongruent cues, shifting the geographic location to a middle-ground between these North/South poles, or compromising between sociolinguistic aspects of two locations to “find” a persona that fits with both signals.

The fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Survey of Canadian English presents a unique opportunity to examine change in Canadian English over five decades of real time. A partial replication of the original survey was therefore conducted in 2023-24, gathering a similar number of responses (approximately 14,000) from every province of Canada. The new survey reprised 45 of the old survey’s questions, including variables of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and spelling, many of these contrasting British, American, and in some cases Canadian variants. A comparison of the two datasets at the aggregate level finds that the proportion of American variants has grown and continues to grow at the expense of British and Canadian variants, though not all variables show this trend and the spelling variables are generally an exception; that Canada’s provinces vary in the extent to which they display this shift; that vocabulary is more regionally variable than pronunciation, grammar or spelling; and that regional variation is declining today, compared to its prevalence in 1972.

The interaction between socioeconomic status, place of residence, and life expectancy remains poorly understood. This study advances this understanding using administrative data from the German Pension Insurance combined with multiple data sources on place characteristics. I provide novel estimates for remaining life expectancy at age 65 by lifetime earnings quintiles and geographic areas (NUTS2), revealing substantial heterogeneity in the link between lifetime earnings and life expectancy across NUTS2 regions in West Germany. Subsequently, I conduct a correlational analysis differentiated by socioeconomic status to investigate which place factors are associated with longevity and examine whether the interaction has changed over time. Strikingly, the correlations between place factors and life expectancy are largely homogeneous in magnitude and direction for individuals at the top and the bottom of the lifetime earnings distribution. Furthermore, I find suggestive evidence that the importance of place for the life expectancy of low-income individuals has decreased over time.

This study examines how income, location and regional disparities are associated with food expenditure and dietary diversity in Mexico. Using household expenditure data and an entropy-based approach, we confirm Engel’s Law: food budget shares decline with income but do so unevenly across urban–rural areas and regions. Consistent with the Engel curve for variety, wealthier households diversify their diets, spending more on high-value foods, while poorer rural households remain reliant on staples. Quantile regression shows that income has the strongest positive effect on diversity at lower quantiles, with diminishing returns at higher levels. Household characteristics, education, region, and food prices further influence diet. The results thereby underscore the need for income-sensitive, regionally targeted nutrition policies.

Regional accent biases in 27 Essex five-year-olds are investigated. This study is the first to analyse implicit language attitudes by measuring children’s neural activity (event-related potentials) while they take part in an Implicit Association Test. Both measures find a preference towards the prestigious accent, Standard Southern British English (SSBE), which is associated with cleverness (CLEVER). A late positive potential in the brain data for the association of the familiar, low-prestige Essex accent with CLEVER suggests the children also have a positive association with their home accent. The association between the less familiar, low-prestige Yorkshire accent and either CLEVER or NOT-CLEVER depends on the measure. Differences in the results are found relating to the children’s accent exposure; those with a more heterogenous group of caretakers show more positive bias towards all three accents overall. Consequences for modelling the development of language attitudes are discussed.

The present study offers an examination of attitudes and perceptions of the Ukrainian language by respondents who have lived at least half of their life in Ukraine; they were asked to draw on a map of Ukraine where the most correct Ukrainian is spoken and where the Ukrainian that grates on one’s ears is spoken. Recruitment for the online survey was conducted by placing ads on several Ukrainian-language Facebook pages, along with a link to the survey. The findings presented are from a total of 90 analyzed surveys. Respondents’ maps were analyzed and compared using QGIS software. The research demonstrates that that there is a tug-of-war of correctness between Kyiv and Lviv. It also shows that there is an overall tendency of native speakers to evaluate the Transcarpathian region as the area that grates one’s ears.

Sociodemographic information, such as a speaker’s regional origin, is intimately related to the judgments and social evaluations that listeners assign to that speaker. This association between linguistic form and social information can also lead to linguistic profiling, a harmful form of discrimination. The present study examines the geographic classifications and social attitudes attributed to ten phonetic variants used within regional varieties of Iberian (i.e., European) Spanish. We are specifically interested in understanding listeners’ geographical classifications and language attitudes held toward Andalusian Spanish, which is a less privileged regional variety spoken in Spain’s southern region, as compared to north-central Peninsular Spanish (NCPS). The results of an online survey show that 165 listeners were fairly consistent when geographically classifying Andalusian-sounding stimuli as originating from the south of Spain. Importantly, the respondents also attributed less favorable social meaning to the Andalusian-sounding stimuli in comparison to the NCPS-sounding stimuli. We link the findings to broader themes in sociolinguistics, such as language-based discrimination, linguistic insecurity, and the social motivations of language change.

The overall aim of this article is to show that pauper letters are a valuable, but as yet largely untapped resource for historical dialectological research. Offering a case study based on 31 poor-relief applications sent by 10 individuals to parishes in Dorset between 1742 and 1834, the article aims to identify regional variation, especially as associated with Dorset and/or the Southwest of England more generally, by comparing variant spellings and morphosyntactic usages contained in the letters with features listed in modern dialect surveys (mainly Wakelin 1986; Altendorf & Watt 2008; Wagner 2008), as well as in Dorset poet William Barnes’ Dissertation and the reconstruction of his idiolect by Burton (2013). It is possible to isolate 297 occurrences of 52 different phonological and morphosyntactic features in the pauper letters; 11 of these features are salient across the letter selection (i.e. represented by at least three paupers) and are suggestive of the provenance of the letters. The article also offers surprising findings such as the absence of the prototypically Southwestern fricative voicing, features unrecorded by modern synopses (e.g. unmarked possessive), and the presence of a feature (-ind for -ing) which had fallen out of common use in the fifteenth century.