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In this paper, we demonstrate the use of Visible Vowels to detect formant and durational differences between L2 and L1 speakers. We used a dataset that contains vowel measures from L1 speakers of French and from L2 learners of French, with Italian, Spanish and English as L1. We found that vowels that are not part of the L1 phonological system are often pronounced differently by L2 speakers. Inspired by the Native Language Magnet Theory which was introduced by Patricia Kuhl in 2000, we introduced magnet plots that relate vowels shared by the French phonological system and the learners’ phonological system—the magnet vowels—to the vowels found only in the French phonological system. At a glance, it can be seen which vowels are attracted to the magnets and which vowels become further away from the magnets. When comparing vowel spaces, we found that the shape of the French vowel space of the English learners differed most from the shape of L1 speakers’ vowel space. Finally, it was found that the vowel durations of the L2 speakers are greater than that of the L1 speakers of French, especially those of the English learners of French.

The highly variable nature of rhotics is behind their great potential as sociolinguistic variables. The advent of detailed sociophonetic studies has further increased the interest in exploring the many dimensions of r variation. The main focus of this chapter is on three processes involving rhotic variability. Each of these demonstrates the great potential of r for informing theories of variation of change and for testing sociophonetic methodologies. Conversely, they show how the questions sociophoneticians ask and the methods they use shed new light on these processes. A case study of Dutch r variation further illustrates this interplay and makes a case for the studying the social and phonetic dimensions of variability in tandem, and in detail. Looking into the future of rhotic studies, we argue for expanding our scope by collecting detailed data from more languages, as well as incorporating experimental approaches into sociophonetics, The highly variable nature of rhotics is behind their great potential as sociolinguistic variables. The advent of detailed sociophonetic studies has further increased the interest in exploring the many dimensions of r variation. The main focus of this chapter is on three processes involving rhotic variability. Each of these demonstrates the great potential of r for informing theories of variation of change and for testing sociophonetic methodologies. Conversely, they show how the questions sociophoneticians ask and the methods they use shed new light on these processes. A case study of Dutch r variation further illustrates this interplay and makes a case for the studying the social and phonetic dimensions of variability in tandem, and in detail. Looking into the future of rhotic studies, we argue for expanding our scope by collecting detailed data from more languages, as well as incorporating experimental approaches into sociophonetics.

Contemporary West Frisian (ISO 639-2 fry; henceforth: Frisian) has a rich and symmetrical vowel system, with nine short and nine long monophthongs as well as numerous rising, falling and centring diphthongs. However, the vowel system of this minority language is changing, some of these changes are induced by contact with Dutch, others are more likely to be internal changes. One such sound change in progress is observed in the long high vowel /iː/, which younger speakers tend to realise as a centring diphthong [iˑə]. Consequently, the traditional minimal pair wiid /ʋiːt/ ‘wide’ ~ wiet /ʋiˑət/ ‘wet’ becomes homophonic [ʋiˑət]. We present the first analysis of this sound change in progress. Based on acoustic analyses of the trajectory of /iː/ of 51 speakers from Boarnsterhim, we show that the youngest speakers use this centralising diphthongisation more often than older speakers. Moreover, analyses show that diphthongisation occurs more often before alveolar consonants.

LED-A is a web app for calculating linguistic distances with Levenshtein distance using phonetic IPA transcriptions.

This paper examines minority language education in the Dutch province of Fryslân from a rights-based approach. To conduct the analysis, we employed a qualitative (legal) content analysis. We explored minority language rights at different levels to answer the following question: To what extent are international and regional standards on minority-language education applied domestically to education in Frisian and through the medium of the Frisian language? We discuss the historical trends in the international community regarding minority-language education and elaborate specifically on the Netherlands’ shifting approach on the matter. Our analysis of international, regional, and domestic regulations shows that the issue of exemptions and the reduction in the Frisian core objectives have weakened the position of Frisian in education. Owing to the lack of proper implementation of the current regulations, the Netherlands has been deficient in fulfilling the right to mother-tongue education in Frisian primary schools. The analysis further shows that the Netherlands do not treat Frisian education as a right. Legal solutions to remedy this situation are discussed.

This paper examines minority language education in the Dutch province of Fryslân from a rights-based approach. To conduct the analysis, we employed a qualitative (legal) content analysis. We explored minority language rights at different levels to answer the following question: To what extent are international and regional standards on minority-language education applied domestically to education in Frisian and through the medium of the Frisian language? We discuss the historical trends in the international community regarding minority-language education and elaborate specifically on the Netherlands’ shifting approach on the matter. Our analysis of international, regional, and domestic regulations shows that the issue of exemptions and the reduction in the Frisian core objectives have weakened the position of Frisian in education. Owing to the lack of proper implementation of the current regulations, the Netherlands has been deficient in fulfilling the right to mother-tongue education in Frisian primary schools. The analysis further shows that the Netherlands do not treat Frisian education as a right. Legal solutions to remedy this situation are discussed.

Visible Consonants is a web app for the analysis and visualization of acoustic consonant measurements

We present a lemmatizer/PoS tagger/dependency parser for West Frisian using a corpus of 44,714 words in 3,126 sentences that were annotated according to the guidelines of Universal Dependencies version 2. PoS tags were assigned to words by using a Dutch PoS tagger that was applied to a Dutch word-by-word translation, or to sentences of a Dutch parallel text. Best results were obtained when using word-by-word translations that were created by using the previous version of the Frisian translation program Oersetter. Morphologic and syntactic annotations were generated on the basis of a Dutch word-by-word translation as well. The performance of the lemmatizer/tagger/annotator when it was trained using default parameters was compared to the performance that was obtained when using the parameter values that were used for training the LassySmall UD 2.5 corpus. We study the effects of different hyperparameter settings on the accuracy of the annotation pipeline. The Frisian lemmatizer/PoS tagger/dependency parser is released as a web app and as a web service.

The IKEMA study (Randomized, Open Label, Multicenter Study Assessing the Clinical Benefit of Isatuximab Combined With Carfilzomib [Kyprolis®] and Dexamethasone Versus Carfilzomib With Dexamethasone in Patients With Relapse and/or Refractory Multiple Myeloma Previously Treated With 1 to 3 Prior Lines; #NCT03275285) was a randomized, open-label, multicenter phase 3 study investigating isatuximab plus carfilzomib and dexamethasone (Isa-Kd) vs Kd in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma. This subanalysis analyzed the depth of response of Isa-Kd vs Kd. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS); secondary end points included overall response rate, very good partial response or better (≥VGPR) rate, complete response (CR) rate, and minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity rate (assessed in patients with ≥VGPR by next-generation sequencing at a 10-5 sensitivity level). At a median follow-up of 20.7 months, deeper responses were observed in the Isa-Kd arm vs the Kd arm, with ≥VGPR 72.6% vs 56.1% and CR of 39.7% vs 27.6%, respectively. MRD negativity occurred in 53 (29.6%) of 179 patients in the Isa-Kd arm vs 16 (13.0%) of 123 patients in the Kd arm, with 20.1% (Isa-Kd, 36 of 179 patients) vs 10.6% (Kd, 13 of 123 patients) reaching MRD-negative CR status. Achieving MRD negativity resulted in better PFS in both arms. A positive PFS treatment effect was seen with Isa-Kd in both MRD-negative patients (hazard ratio, 0.578; 95% CI, 0.052-6.405) and MRD-positive patients (hazard ratio, 0.670; 95% CI, 0.452-0.993). Exploratory analysis indicates that both current CR and MRD-negative CR rates are underestimated due to M-protein interference (potential adjusted CR rate, 45.8%; potential adjusted MRD-negative CR rate, 24.0%). In conclusion, there was a clinically meaningful improvement in depth of response with Isa-Kd. The CR rate in Isa-Kd was 39.7%. Mass spectrometry suggests that the potential adjusted CR rate could reach an unprecedented 45.8% of patients treated