Bonus 83: Themself, Basque ergativity cartoons, and bad swearing ideas - Deleted scenes from Kirby Conrod, Itxaso Rodriguez-Ordoñez, and Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

We’ve interviewed lots of great people on Lingthusiasm, and sometimes there’s a story or two that we just don’t have space for in the main episode, so here’s a bonus episode with our favourite recent outtakes! Think of it as a special bonus edition DVD from the past year of Lingthusiasm with director’s commentary and deleted scenes.

In this bonus episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn’t quite have space to share with you. First, we go back to our online liveshow with fan-favourite guest Kirby Conrod, previously seen talking about singular they and other language and gender topics, about reflexive pronouns (themself vs themselves) and people who use multiple pronouns in fiction and real life. Then we go back to Itxaso Rodriguez-Ordoñez, previously talking about Basque language revival, about how Basque people feel about the famed ergativity (hint: there are cartoons!). Finally, we go back to authors Jo Walton and Ada Palmer, previously talking about swearing in science fiction, fantasy, and history, about bad swearing ideas in fiction and why acronymic etymologies should be viewed with deep suspicion.

Listen to this episode of deleted scenes from recent interviews, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

Lauren: I think fiction is a really great philosophical experiment. It’s one of the reasons I really find sci-fi to be interesting is because it can push the limits of what another mind is or what another mental state is to be thinking in. One thing we didn’t get to in the bonus episode about Arkady Martine’s Memory Called Empire is that there are people who have the capacity to take on the entire previous knowledge state of someone else. I just am like what would an evidential marking system be like for a person who has multiple consciousnesses worth of evidence for a statement.

Gretchen: Like, “I know this because my original consciousness knew this” or “I know this because the consciousness that I got added to mine later in life knows this.” Oh, man.

Lauren: There’re just so many layers of potential knowledge state there. That’s the kind of sci-fi that lets me bring my linguist brain to problems of consciousness.

Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind’

Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about linguistics and society, and pragmatics.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about four science fiction books/series we’re read recently that project interesting future versions of English. In the Terra Ignota series, set 500 years in the future, the characters use singular they for each other but the narrator uses “she” and “he” along with “thou” for deliberately archaic/subversive effect. In Woman on the Edge of Time, set in both the 1970s when it was written and 150 years later, the future timeline uses a gender-neutral “person” (short form “per”) and has abolished gender roles in a way that’s even starker in comparison to the 70s timeline. In the Expanse books, set around 2350 in space, humans living on the asteroid belt have created a contact language named Belter Creole with influence from English and many other languages, which was expanded on further for the tv show. In the Book of Koli and sequels, set centuries into a post-apocalyptic future, the narrator has many features that are rooted in present-day English but associated with less literacy (such as “could of” or “count and seal” for “council”).

We also talk about reading books set in the future but written in the past, and how several of these books now exist in a future that’s in some ways more similar to their imagined futures than the time when they were being written. Note that we’re not spoilery for major plot events in any of these books, so you can feel free to listen without having read them! Though we can’t guarantee you won’t come away with a few additions to your reading list….

Listen to this episode about speculative future English in fiction and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm Episode 3: Arrival of the linguists

Linguists are very excited about the movie Arrival, because it stars a linguist saving the day by figuring out how to talk with aliens. Which, if you compare it to previous linguists in film (being obnoxious to poor flower girls, for example) is a vast improvement. 

In this episode of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, Gretchen and Lauren come to you having just watched Arrival, to tell you what it got right and wrong about life as a linguist, how linguists have been reacting, and the linguists who consulted on the film. We also talk about some other books and films that feature linguistics, if Arrival caught your interest. 

We also discuss what we’ve been up to lately. Gretchen is busily writing the latest draft of her book about internet English, and Lauren has just published a grammar of a language spoken in Nepal.

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:

• Intrigued by the linguistics in Arrival? Here’s what to check out next
• Language Log: the making of a cinematic linguist’s office
• List of linguistics media about Arrival from Jessica Coon
• The real etymology of Kangaroo
• How different languages name colours (Claire Bowern)
  
• Praat
• Lauren’s grammar of Lamjung Yolmo
• Gretchen’s page of book updates to date
  

Reviews:

• Lauren’s review of Story of Your Life
  
• Lauren’s review of Native Tongue
• Lauren’s review of Babel 17
• Lauren’s review of Embassy Town
  
• Gretchen’s livetweet of Too Like The Lightning
• Gretchen’s livetweets of The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate
• Gretchen’s posts about Ancillary Justice
• Gretchen’s livetweet of The Last Samurai
• Two linguists explain pseudo-Old English in The Wake
• Gretchen’s list of pop linguistics books and lingfic with Lauren’s additions

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.

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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).