Whether you say them the same or differently, hope you have a joyful festive season!
Do you need your friends and loved ones to know just how much of a linguistics nerd you are when sending out holiday greeting cards? Send ‘em Lingthusiasm’s {Merry, marry, Mary} Holidays card to let them make jokes about the merry-marry-Mary merger AND the n400 brain wave produced in response to unexpected words. Two linguistics references for the price of one, brought to you by Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.
Want other Lingthusiasm fans to be able to spot you in the wild? Want a pretext to try to get your friends into a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics? Get some merch with the Lingthusiasm logo featuring fun little linguistics-y drawings: a leaping Gavagai rabbit, bouba and kiki shapes, and more…see what items you can spot! Art by Lucy Maddox for Lingthusiasm.
Imagine you’re in a field with someone whose language you don’t speak. A rabbit scurries by. The other person says “Gavagai!” You probably assumed they meant “rabbit” but they could have meant something else, like “scurrying” or even “lo! an undetached rabbit-part!” We undergo this experience practically every time we learn a word, and yet we still manage to do it.
Inspired by the famous Gavagai thought experiment, these items feature a running rabbit and the caption “lo, an undetached rabbit-part!” in a woodblock-engraving-crossed-with-vaporwave style in magenta, indigo, teal, cream, and black/white on shirts, scarves, and more!
“More people have been to Russia than I have” is a sentence that at first seems fine, but then gets weirder and weirder the more you read it. Inspired by these Escher sentences, we’ve made self-referential shirts saying “More people have read the text on this shirt than I have” (also available on tote bags, mugs, and hats, with the appropriate tweaks in wording), so you can wear them in old-time typewriter font and see who does a double take.
We’ve made a design that simply says “Ask me about linguistics” in a style that looks like a classic “Hello, my name is…” sticker, and you can put it on stickers and buttons and shirts and assorted other portable items for when you want to skip the small talk and go right to a topic you’re excited about.
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Lingthusiasm merch generally
If you’re looking for subtle-to-obvious ways to signal that you’re a linguist or linguistics fan in public, gift ideas for the linguistics enthusiast in your life (or handy links to forward to people who might be interested in getting you a gift sometime), we also have many previous items of Lingthusiasm merch!
We love to see your photos of Lingthusiasm merch or any diy linguistics crafts projects you might make! Feel free to tag us @lingthusiasm on social media or share in the #merch-crafts-objects channel in the Lingthusiasm Discord.
Stay lingthusiastic!
New Lingthusiasm Merch! “Etymology isn’t destiny” and aesthetic IPA chart on lots of items
“Etymology isn’t destiny” on shirts, magnets, notebooks, and more!
Words change their meanings over time, and when we remind ourselves that etymology isn’t destiny, we can also remember we’re free to grow and change over the course of our lives too. We’ve talked about how the meanings of words are something that we’re constantly creating with each other in many Lingthusiasm episodes, so the idea that etymology isn’t destiny is a fun and liberating thing that you can now contemplate regularly by looking at these words in sparkly, witchy script by our linguist-artist Lucy Maddox in black, white, midnight blue, Lingthusiasm green, or (our personal favourite) rainbow gradient. Etymology isn’t Destiny is available on lots of items, including many different shapes and colours of shirts (for adults, kids, and babies!), stickers, laptop cases, mugs, tote bags, water bottles, zip pouches, notebooks, and excitingly, magnets!
Aesthetic IPA chart now on posters, shirts, and more!
The International Phonetic Alphabet chart is sometimes called the periodic table of linguistics – an important technical diagram that’s also visually interesting and which many linguists hang up on a wall, carry around inside a notebook, or simply know the exact keystrokes that’ll get them to a page to type or listen to it.
Like with the periodic table of the elements, the layout of the IPA chart is a key to what the symbols mean: from top to bottom, the chart goes roughly from sounds where the mouth is the most closed to the most open, and from left to right, it goes from sounds where the constriction is the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth. This means that many linguists only know well the parts of the IPA that they encounter regularly in languages they work with, and rely on their knowledge of the overall structure to retrieve other parts on occasion. Hence the need to have it handy to refer to.
But there’s also an important way in which the IPA chart and the periodic table differ: art. If you want a handy reference chart of the elements for your wall or your pocket, there are hundreds of possible designs, ranging from subtle, minimalist designs that look like cool nerdy art to intricate, maximalist designs with all the technical detail you might possibly want to refer to.
With the International Phonetic Alphabet, most people are still printing out (or occasionally stickering, or laminating) the same greyscale diagram from the International Phonetic Association. We, your Lingthusiasm cohosts, have a lot of affection for this classic design, which we’ve spent many hours poring over (especially the forbidden grey areas, ahem), but we also wondered, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a more subtle, minimal version that would look more like weird-yet-stylish nerd art and less like a diagram from an academic paper?
For these reasons, last year we commissioned an aesthetically redesigned version of the International Phonetic Alphabet from our linguist-artist Lucy Maddox and put it on a one-time order of microfibre lens cloths. We’ve since heard from several people who missed out on that order or wish they could have the design in another format, so we’ve now made that available in several versions: the original square design as a poster, a version with rectangular proportions as a poster (depending on the shape of that blank space on your wall which needs a cool IPA poster), and a transparent background version that plays well on a shirt! The notebooks and tote bags also look really good with the aesthetic IPA chart on them if you want a version to bring to classes or conferences. Also someone requested a mouse pad so we did that and then we put it on an apron because why not.
Lingthusiasm merch generally
If you’re looking for subtle-to-obvious ways to signal that you’re a linguist or linguistics fan in public, gift ideas for the linguistics enthusiast in your life (or handy links to forward to people who might be interested in getting you a gift sometime), we also have many previous items of Lingthusiasm merch! There are many subtly linguistics-patterened scarves, water bottles with linguistics-related jokes on them, NOT JUDGING YOUR GRAMMAR, JUST ANALYSING IT shirts, or just have a browse. All of the Lingthusiasm merch makes a great gift for the linguist or linguistics fan in your life, and as a patron you get to find out about new merch before anyone else! Check out the merch page at lingthusiasm.com/merch for the previous rounds of Lingthusiasm merch.
As ever, we love seeing photos of any Lingthusiasm merch or linguistics-themed crafts in your lives! Tag us in them @lingthusiasm on all of the social medias (or private message us photos of your babies in Lingthusiasm onesies if you’re not keen on posting baby photos publically, we still love to see them!)
Lingthusiasm aesthetic IPA chart lens cloth special offer! (Closing October 5th, 2022)
The
International Phonetic Alphabet chart is sometimes called the periodic
table of linguistics. But the periodic table comes in a range of aesthetics,
and we wanted to create a sleek, minimalist, aesthetic IPA chart design too. One that you can take
anywhere on a handy portable lens cloth so you can admire the chart while also
keeping your glasses, computer screen, sunglasses and camera lens
clean.
We’re going to place ONE (1) massive order for aesthetic IPA chart lens cloths on October 6, 2022. If you want one, be a Lingthusiasm patron at the Lingthusiast tier or higher on October 5th, 2022,
timezone: anywhere in the world. If you’re already a patron at that
tier, then you’re set! (That’s the tier where you also get bonus episodes and the Discord access, we’ve never run a special offer at this tier before but we think this time it’ll be worth it!)
If you know other linguists or linguistics fans who might be excited to
have a snazzy aesthetic IPA chart that they can carry around with them
(plus, y'know, get access to the usual Patreon perks
like bonus Lingthusiasm episodes and a Discord server that’s
enthusiastic about linguistics), please help them find out about this
before it’s too late! We are not planning to ever order a second batch
of IPA lens cloths, so this is your one chance to get them.
For more details about the motivation behind the design, and the lens cloth special offer, see this longer post.
[IPA chart redesign image description: an abstract, minimalist* rendering of the
International Phonetic Alphabet as a grid of white, sans-serif letters
on a midnight blue background, with no row or column headings. Bright
green is used as an accent colour, for solid green circles around the
voiceless consonants; white circles with green font for the rounded
vowels, and narrow green borders around the lateral sounds. There’s a
small lingthusiasm logo in the bottom corner and a translucent “demo”
watermark splashed in the background.]
[Infographic image description: What if the International Phonetic Alphabet looked
like weird nerd art? Get this design (arrow to previously-described
abstract IPA demo) on a handy-to-carry lens cloth (image of those
microfibre cloths you clean glasses with; these are not the actual
cloths but just to give you an idea of the genre). (Tiny abstract
drawing of Lauren & Gretchen silhouettes from the website.) We’re
placing one bulk order for everyone who’s a Lingthusiast patron or
higher as of October 5, 2022. Sign up at patreon.com/lingthusiasm]
People have been telling us, I’m extremely bored of this pandemic still (still!) existing and is there a way that I could get more linguistics joy and whimsy in the mail?
People have also been asking, is there a way to get Gretchen to sign my copy of her book Because Internet, especially since irl conferences are, uh, not much of a thing these days?
We’re excited to announce a special offer that we’re running on Patreon that solves both of these problems!
Two round “Schwa never stressed” stickers (one floral, one geometric)
One classic square Lingthusiasm logo sticker
One BECAUSE INTERNET bookplate sticker signed by Gretchen, for you to stick inside your copy or anywhere else you like
Here’s what the stickers look like! (IPA scarf and hot cup of tea not included)
Plus, we have a stretch goal!
If we reach a total of 1400 1380 (!) patrons at any level before November 3, then the sticker pack will also include:
Two mini Lingthusiasm green cutout stickers, one of which is called “bouba” and the other “kiki” — which is which? That’s an experiment you get to run on your friends when you stick them on your phone case, water bottle, laptop, etc.
Here’s what the sticker set looks like, including the kiki bouba twins:
Ling-phabet tier
This special offer is part of the Ling-phabet tier, which also has the ordinary perk of letting patrons sponsor an IPA symbol or other special character and be recognized on the Lingthusiasm website on our “Supporter Wall of Fame” page. You can get your symbol through our ~*~super scientific~*~ Which IPA Character Are You Quiz, or just tell us what your favourite character or other Unicode symbol is. Then you get an image with your name and favourite symbol on it (see samples here!) recognizing you as a supporter, which you can share on social media/print off and use as a bookmark/gaze at in warm satisfaction/etc.
Plus, after 3 months at this tier, you get its regular “Lingthusiast” sticker in the mail, so that could be a total of 5 (or 7) stickers and 2 joyous mail occasions for you!
(Patrons at the Phil-ling-thropist tier will get two sticker packs — an extra one to share with a friend or to make sure your next laptop is still sufficiently lingthusiastic — plus the IPA Wall of Fame tile. Phil-ling-thropists also have the impact of 10 patrons in lowering our stretch goal — many thanks to the two people who have already done so! Patrons at this level also receive a “Lingthusiast” mug after three months at this tier instead of the three month sticker.)
Patrons at all tiers help keep the show running
We’re still incredibly appreciative of all kinds of support for our completely independent linguistics podcast! Whether you’re talking about Lingthusiasm on social media or just sending a link to one friend who you want to listen with you, every little bit helps. Plus, patrons at every level are contributing to progress on the kiki/bouba sticker stretch goal. Existing patrons at the relevant tiers will still receive sticker packs, and we’ll be in touch to confirm addresses closer to the shipping date.
The bonus episodes and access to the Lingthusiasm Discord will continue to be available at the Ling-thusist tier and above the way they always have, so definitely don’t feel like you have to go for this special offer if you can’t spare the cash, but if you can afford it and you’d like to help cross-subsidize Lingthusiasm for the many people learning about linguistics for free from our main episodes, then we’ve got these new special perks to make it even sweeter!
People have been telling us, I’m extremely bored of this pandemic still (still!) existing and is there a way that I could get more linguistics joy and whimsy in the mail?
People have also been asking, is there a way to get Gretchen to sign my copy of her book Because Internet, especially since irl conferences are, uh, not much of a thing these days?
We’re excited to announce a special offer that we’re running on Patreon that solves both of these problems!
Two round “Schwa never stressed” stickers (one floral, one geometric)
One classic square Lingthusiasm logo sticker
One BECAUSE INTERNET bookplate sticker signed by Gretchen, for you to stick inside your copy or anywhere else you like
Here’s what the stickers look like! (IPA scarf and hot cup of tea not included)
Plus, we have a stretch goal!
If we reach a total of 1400 1380 (!) patrons at any level before November 3, then the sticker pack will also include:
Two mini Lingthusiasm green cutout stickers, one of which is called “bouba” and the other “kiki” — which is which? That’s an experiment you get to run on your friends when you stick them on your phone case, water bottle, laptop, etc.
Here’s what the sticker set looks like, including the kiki bouba twins:
Ling-phabet tier
This special offer is part of the Ling-phabet tier, which also has the ordinary perk of letting patrons sponsor an IPA symbol or other special character and be recognized on the Lingthusiasm website on our “Supporter Wall of Fame” page. You can get your symbol through our ~*~super scientific~*~ Which IPA Character Are You Quiz, or just tell us what your favourite character or other Unicode symbol is. Then you get an image with your name and favourite symbol on it (see samples here!) recognizing you as a supporter, which you can share on social media/print off and use as a bookmark/gaze at in warm satisfaction/etc.
Plus, after 3 months at this tier, you get its regular “Lingthusiast” sticker in the mail, so that could be a total of 5 (or 7) stickers and 2 joyous mail occasions for you!
(Patrons at the Phil-ling-thropist tier will get two sticker packs — an extra one to share with a friend or to make sure your next laptop is still sufficiently lingthusiastic — plus the IPA Wall of Fame tile. Phil-ling-thropists also have the impact of 10 patrons in lowering our stretch goal — many thanks to the two people who have already done so! Patrons at this level also receive a “Lingthusiast” mug after three months at this tier instead of the three month sticker.)
Patrons at all tiers help keep the show running
We’re still incredibly appreciative of all kinds of support for our completely independent linguistics podcast! Whether you’re talking about Lingthusiasm on social media or just sending a link to one friend who you want to listen with you, every little bit helps. Plus, patrons at every level are contributing to progress on the kiki/bouba sticker stretch goal. Existing patrons at the relevant tiers will still receive sticker packs, and we’ll be in touch to confirm addresses closer to the shipping date.
The bonus episodes and access to the Lingthusiasm Discord will continue to be available at the Ling-thusist tier and above the way they always have, so definitely don’t feel like you have to go for this special offer if you can’t spare the cash, but if you can afford it and you’d like to help cross-subsidize Lingthusiasm for the many people learning about linguistics for free from our main episodes, then we’ve got these new special perks to make it even sweeter!
Kiki and bouba on scarves, mugs, notebooks, and more!
If I give you a rounded, lumpy shape and a sharp, spiky one, and tell you that one is called kiki and the other bouba, which name would you attach to which shape? It turns out that people’s responses are surprisingly consistent! This classic experiment in cross-modal perception featured in Lingthusiasm episode 21: What words sound spiky across languages?, has become a favourite subject of linguistics memes, and is now available as Lingthusiasm merch!
You can now ask random people at a conference, in class, or at work which one is bouba and which is kiki, in black, red, green, yellow, pale blue, pink, or white. (We’ve also released the bouba/kiki images under a CC-BY license, should you wish to use it in linguistics experiments of your own.)
“What the fricative?” on t-shirts and more!
You know how some pieces of technical terminology just really sound like they moonlight as minor swear words? “What the fricative” totally looks like something you exclaim when you stub your toe, and yet it actually just refers to the entirely innocuous class of sound that is produced by creating friction with the stream of air as it comes out of your mouth, such as /s/, /z/, /v/, and yes, /f/ itself. Fricatives were featured in Lingthusiasm episode 58: A Fun-Filled Fricative Field Trip.
Now you can confuse people by not actually swearing and secretly give yourself an excuse to chat linguistics with them, thanks to our What the Fricative items in black or white text! (Is this your first time hearing about fricatives? We’re going to have a whole episode about them next week, you’re just finding out about this early because you’re a patron!)
Our classic International Phonetic Alphabet print on backpacks, duffel bags, and phone cases!
All of the Lingthusiasm merch makes a great gift for the linguist or linguistics fan in your life! Check out the merch page at lingthusiasm.com/merch for the previous rounds of Lingthusiasm merch.
As ever, we love seeing photos of any Lingthusiasm merch in your lives! Tag us in them @lingthusiasm on social media!
Lingthusiasm Episode 45: Tracing languages back before recorded history
Language is much older than writing. But audio and visual cues from sounds and signs don’t leave physical traces the way writing does. So when linguists want to figure out how people talked before history started being recorded, we need to engage in some careful detective work, by comparing two or more similar, known languages to (potentially!) reconstruct a hypothetical common ancestor.
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about these prehistoric languages that historical linguists have reconstructed, known as proto-languages. We dive into some of our favourite proto-languages (Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Algonquian, Proto-Pama-Nyungan, and Proto-Bantu), look at their characteristic grammatical signatures, and explain what we can and can’t know about the people who spoke them based on their vocabularies.
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 LingComm Grants. Here are the project titles for the 4 grantees, and there’s more information about each project on the LingComm website, as well as two honourable mentions. We’re very excited to
share more with you as they develop.
Jazicharnica (Јазичарница) blog (Nina Tunteva and Viktorija Blazheska)
War of Words podcast (Juana de los Santos; Angela Makeviciuz; Antonella Moschetti; Néstor Bermúdez)
We had over 75 applications from around the world and we’d like to thank
all applicants for making the job of deciding extremely difficult!
This month’s bonus episode is about doing linguistics with kids! Child language acquisition is a perennial source of entertainment for the linguistically-inclined – and so is helping any young people in your life develop an interest in linguistics. In this episode, we talk about some of our favourite things to observe about how kids are learning language as well as linguistically-relevant books for children, middle grade, and young adult. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to get access to this and 39 other bonus episodes, and to chat with fellow lingthusiasts in the Lingthusiasm patron Discord.
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).
Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.
Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about schwa and stress. First, we made our LingComm grant goal! We’re now giving out three grants to linguistics communication projects. The deadline for those applications is the 1st of June wherever you are, which is very soon, so make sure to get those applications in. That’s 2020, in case you’re listening from the future.
Lauren: We’re actually giving out four. We are giving out more than we originally planned, thanks to Claire Bowern funding a fourth LingComm grant on a project that looks at minoritised languages.
Gretchen: Those grant applications are due on June 1st, 2020. If you’re interested in applying for that, go to the website lingcomm.org. That’s “comm” with two Ms. You’ll see all the details there.
Lauren: If you’re listening to this deep in the future, you can go to lingcomm.org to see what great projects we funded.
Gretchen: Indeed you can.
Lauren: We now have new Lingthusiasm merch. We have little badges for you to wear through Redbubble, which is really exciting. They’re super cute.
Gretchen: Interesting! I think I would call those “pins” or maybe “buttons.” Whatever you call them, they are round circular things that you can pin on your clothes or backpacks that say fun linguistics things on them.
Lauren: Hm. I’d call them “button badges” as well.
Gretchen: I think “buttons” is kind of ambiguous because you don’t know if that’s a kind of button you use that you sew into your clothing or that you pin into your clothing. Maybe I like “pins”? Anyway, you can get these at lingthusiasm.com/merch along with more sticker designs and other Lingthusiasm merch like scarves with the International Phonetic Alphabet on them and other fun things like that.
Lauren: This month’s Patreon bonus episode is about numbers. We look at different counting systems, different number systems, and what using your fingers to count says about you. You can get access to this and 38 other bonus episodes at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.
[Music]
Gretchen: Okay. I have a puzzle for us.
Lauren: Awesome. I love a puzzle.
Gretchen: I’m gonna give you a few words, then you can tell me what they have in common. Our words are “about.”
Lauren: “About.”
Gretchen: “Broken.”
Lauren: “Broken.”
Gretchen: And “council.”
Lauren: “Council.”
Gretchen: Any thoughts for what they have in common?
Lauren: My immediate thought was I’m sad we don’t have Lingthusiasm think time music.
Gretchen: We do have theme music. Maybe we could play it a bit again.
Lauren: Hm. Ah. “About, broken, council” – they all start with different letters. They all have different letters in them. I’m assuming it’s not something about what they mean. They’re all two syllables long.
Gretchen: That’s true. I should give you a couple more examples that also have this thing in common to see if that helps.
Lauren: Okay.
Gretchen: We have “about, broken, council, potato,” and “support.”
Lauren: Oh, “potato.” The goes my two-syllable theory. Definitely nothing semantic about their meaning. They still all have completely different letters. You’ve actually made it harder with more data, Gretchen. Harder. That’s not useful.
Gretchen: The thing we wanna think about is not just what letters are in them but what sounds are in them.
Lauren: Right.
Gretchen: Is there any sound that all five of these words have in common?
Lauren: If I look at the spelling, they all have completely different vowels. They don’t even have the same vowels. But if I listen to how they’re spoken, think about “about, broken,” and “council,” [Gasp] “potato,” and “support,” they all have schwa.
Gretchen: They all have schwa, which I know is your favourite vowel. I have created this quiz just for you.
Lauren: Excellent. Thank you so much. They all have this /ə/ sound. It’s the coolest little letter that doesn’t exist as a written letter in English. It’s one of the coolest sounds in English. I love it. We’re doing a whole episode. It’s schwa time.
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Weird and deep conversations about the hidden language patterns that you didn't realize you were already making.
New episodes (free!) the third Thursday of the month.
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