One of the really nifty things about stories is how they can explore striking and unexpected ways that communication could be different from what we’re used to, whether that’s communicating with alien life forms or across space and cultures.  

In this bonus episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about some of the linguistically interesting fiction we’ve been reading lately! We talk about the challenges of communicating with sentient plants (from the plant’s perspective) in Semiosis by Sue Burke, communicating with aliens by putting babies in pods (look, it was the 1980s) in Suzette Haden Elgin’s classic Native Tongue, communicating with humans on a sailing ship using a sorta 19th century proto-internet in Courtney Milan’s The Devil Comes Courting, and taking advantage of the difficulty of translation in communicating poetry across cultures in A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.  

Warning: this episode may make you want to read some books! We don’t spoil major plot points, but we do discuss setup premises and tiny worldbuilding details; if you’re someone who likes to go into a book wholly ignorant, check out the books before listening!

Listen to the quirky communication in lingfic episode, and get access to 53 more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm Episode 49: How translators approach a text

Before even starting to translate a work, a translator needs to make several important macro-level decisions, such as whether to more closely follow the literal structure of the text or to adapt more freely, especially if the original text does things that are unfamiliar to readers in the destination language but would be familiar to readers in the original language. 

In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the relationship of the translator and the text. We talk about the new, updated translation of Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley (affectionately known as the “bro” translation), reading the Tale of Genji in multiple translations, translating conlangs in fiction, and mistranslation on the Scots Wikipedia. 

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Announcements

We’re coming up on Lingthusiasm’s fourth anniversary! In celebration, we’re asking you to help people who would totally enjoy listening to fun conversations about linguistics, they just don’t realize it exists yet! Most people still find podcasts through word of mouth, and we’ve seen a significant bump in listens each November when we ask you to help share the show, so we know this works. If you tag us @lingthusiasm on social media in your recommendation post, we will like/retweet/reshare/thank you as appropriate, or if you send a recommendation to a specific person, we won’t know about it but you can still feel a warm glow of satisfaction at helping out (and feel free to still tell us about it on social media if you’d like to be thanked!). Trying to think of what to say? One option is to pick a particular episode that you liked and share a link to that. 

This month’s bonus episode was about honorifics, words like titles and forms of “you” that express when you’re trying to be extra polite to someone (and which can also be subverted to be rude or intimate). Get access to this and 43 other bonus episodes at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

This is also a good time to start thinking about linguistics merch and other potential gift ideas (paperback copies of Because Internet, anyone?), in time for them to arrive via the internet, if you’re ordering for the holiday season. Check out the Lingthusiasm merch store at lingthusiasm.com/merch.  

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable
• Beowulf, translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
• A “Beowulf” for Our Moment (New Yorker)
• Gretchen reads Beowulf (twitter thread)
• The Sensualist: What makes “The Tale of Genji” so seductive (New Yorker)
• Shadowscent, by P.M Freestone
• How I made the Aramteskan language (Superlinguo)
• Scots Wikipedia (Wikipedia article)
• Wikipedia has a Google Translate problem (The Verge)
• Gretchen’s twitter thread about Scots Wikipedia
  

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

Imagine a language where you only had 2 vowels. Or a language where you used different verb tenses depending on your mood. Or a language with 28 different ways to say thank you. We’re on our way to constructing a pretty unusual language. But that’s part of the fun of constructing  a language; megalomaniacal control, and the ability to test the established limits of what human languages can do, or construct something that could easily sit alongside existing languages.

In this bonus episode, Gretchen and Lauren talk about the world of constructed languages, or conlangs. We discuss the variety of functions conlangs have, how the technical process has a lot in common with language documentation, and some of the ways conlangs are being used in linguistics teaching and research. Lauren also shares some exciting conlang news!

To listen to this bonus episode and previous bonuses, support Lingthusiasm on Patreon! 

Lingthusiasm Episode 1: Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace

Wouldn’t it solve so many problems in the world if everyone just spoke the same language? Not so fast! 

Lingthusiasm is a brand-new podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, hosted by Lauren Gawne of Superlinguo​ and Gretchen McCulloch of All Things Linguistic.

In this first episode of Lingthusiasm, ​Gretchen and Lauren discuss the “one language equals peace” fallacy, and whether speaking the same words means that people will necessarily agree with each other (spoiler: no). But the history of how people have tried is still really interesting, from constructed and symbolic communication like Blissymbols and emoji to the way astronauts communicate in the high stakes environment of the International Space Station.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• The Wikipedia page for Esperanto
• Why do foreign astronauts have to be able to speak Russian?
  
• The beauty of Runglish
  
• Why emoji pose no threat to the English language
• Blissymbols
  
• In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent 
• Aviation English
• Tenerife Airport disaster
  

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).