Posts tagged podcasts

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 111: Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!!

Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!? Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!? Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that’s its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).

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

Announcements:

New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you’re not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews.

Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn’t created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn’t look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven’t succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we’ve actually succeeded in cracking it one day.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• ‘Intonation and Expectation: English Mirative Contours and Particles’ by Kelsey Kraus
• Kelsey Kraus’ intonationally contoured princess cake
• Etymonline entry for 'surprise’
• 'Tomorrow’s Emoji, Today: Unicode 17.0 Has Arrived’ by Jennifer Daniel
• 'Brainwaves of people with coarse, curly hair are now less hard to read’ by Laura Sanders for Science News Explores
• 'Novel Electrodes for Reliable EEG Recordings on Coarse and Curly Hair’ by A. Etienne, T. Laroia, H. Weigle, A. Afelin, S. K. Kelly, A. Krishnan, and P. Grover
• 'Reading Senseless Sentences: Brain Potentials Reflect Semantic Incongruity’ by Marta Kutas and Steven A. Hillyard
• 'Event-Related Potentials (ERP) explained! | Neuroscience Methods 101’ by Psyched! on YouTube
• Wikipedia entry for 'N400 (neuroscience)’
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode 'Language inside an MRI machine - Interview with Saima Malik-Moraleda’
• Lingthusiasm episode 'Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Mirativity’
• 'New Research Article: Looks like a duck, quacks like a hand: Tools for eliciting evidential and epistemic distinctions, with examples from Lamjung Yolmo (Tibetic, Nepal)’ post on Superlinguo
• Wikipedia entry for 'Topic and comment’
• ASL: Topic / Comment

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

Surprise!!

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 110: The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate

Before there was English, or Latin, or Czech, or Hindi, there was a language that they all have in common, which we call Proto-Indo-European. Linguists have long been fascinated by the quest to get a glimpse into what Proto-Indo-European must have looked like through careful comparisons between languages we do have records for, and this very old topic is still undergoing new discoveries.

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the process of figuring out Proto-Indo-European with Dr. Danny Bate, public linguist, host of the podcast A Language I Love Is…, and author of the book Why Q Needs U. We talk about why figuring out the word order of a 5000-year-old language is harder than figuring out the sounds, and a great pop linguistics/history book we’ve both been reading that combines recent advances in linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence to reexamine where these ancient Proto-Indo-European folks lived: Proto by Laura Spinney. We also talk about Danny’s own recent book on the history of the alphabet, featuring fun facts about C, double letters, and izzard!

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about celebratory days, years, decades, and more with some relationship to linguistics! We recently learned that people in the UK have been celebrating National Linguistics Day on November 26th and many lingcommers are excited about the idea of taking those celebrations international: World Linguistics Day, anyone? What we learned putting this episode together is that celebratory days take off when groups of people decide to make them happen so…let’s see how many different locations around the world we can wish each other Happy World Linguistics Day from this year!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Danny Bate on Bluesky and Twitter
• ‘Why Q Needs U’ by Danny Bate
• Danny Bate’s 'A Language I Love Is…’ podcast (Gretchen’s episode about Montreal French and Lauren’s episode about Yolmo)
• ‘Proto; How One Ancient Language Went Global’ by Laura Spinney on Bookshop.org and Amazon
• 'Proto-Indo-European and Laura Spinney’ on Danny Bate’s 'A Language I Love Is…’ Podcast
• Simon Roper on YouTube
• Jackson Crawford on YouTube
• Wikipedia entry for 'Czech language’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Old Church Slavonic’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 109: On the nose - How the nose shapes language

We often invoke the idea of language by showing the mouth or the hands. But the nose is important to both signed and spoken languages: it can be a resonating chamber that air can get shaped by, as well as a salient location for the hand to be in contact with.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the nose! We talk about why noses are so popular cross-linguistically (seriously, nasals are in 98% of the world’s languages), what the nose looks like inside (it’s bigger than you think!), and increasingly cursed methods that linguists have tried to use to see inside the nose (from giving yourself the worst headache to, yes, sticking earbuds up your nostrils). We also share our favourite obscure nose-related idioms, map the surprisingly large distribution of the “cock-a-snook” gesture, and try to pin down why the nose feels like an intrinsically funny part of the body.

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

Announcements:

We’re 9 years old! For our anniversary, we’re hope you could leave us a rating our review on your favourite podcast app to help people who encounter the show want to click “play” for the first time: we’ll read out a few of our favourite reviews at the end of the show over the next year so this could be your words!

People have responded super enthusiastically to the jazzed up version of our logo that we sent to patrons earlier this year! So we’ve now made this design available on some very cute merch. Wear your Lingthusiasm fandom on a shirt or a mug or a notebook to help spot fellow linguistics nerds!

We’ve also made a new greeting card design that says {Merry/marry/Mary} Holidays! Whether you say these words the same or differently, we hope this card leads to joyful discussions of linguistic variation.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about our favourite words ending in nym! We talk about We talk about how there are so many kinds of nym words that are weirder and wackier than classic synonyms and antonyms, how even synonyms and antonyms aren’t quite as straightforward as they seem, and why retronyms make people mad but are Gretchen’s absolute favourite. Plus: a tiny quiz segment on our favourite obscure and cool-sounding nyms!.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Wikipedia entry for ‘N400 (neuroscience)’
• The Free Dictionary entry for 'Idioms - Nose’
• 'Cross-Cultural Cognitive Motivation Of English And Romanian Nose Idioms. A Contrastive Approach’ by Ana-Maria Trantescu
• 'Cultures think alike and unlike: A cognitive study of Arabic and English body parts idioms’ by T.M. Bataineh, & K. A. Al-Shaikhli
• WALS entry Feature 18A: Absence of Common Consonants
• Wikipedia entry for 'Yele language’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Nasal vowel’
• WALS entry for Feature 10A: Vowel Nasalization
• Kevin B. McGowan
• Wikipeda entry for 'Nasal cycles’
• Etymonline entry for 'thrill’
• 'Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages’ by Blasi et al.
• Nez en LSF (langue des signes française) video ('Nose’ in LSF)
• Lingthusiasm episode ’When nothing means something’
• Lingthusiasm episode ’R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity’
• For more on the nose and scent, check out our episode ’Smell words, both real and invented’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

In this episode we follow our noses to end up covering a wide range of topics!

superlinguo:

Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Linguistics Behind the Scenes join linguistics professor Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer and linguistics enthusiast Dominic Piazza on a backstage tour of linguistic research. (transcripts for all episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

When Languages Meet A podcast miniseries for people interested in languages and multilingualism. From MultiBridge.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Now An interview podcast from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

The Language Neuroscience Podcast Neuroscientist Stephen Wilson talks with leading and up-and-coming researchers. For an academic audience. (Transcripts for all episodes).

Writing Wrongs Historic and contemporary forensic linguistic cases, from Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics.

Stories of Languages and Linguistics Created by students at Georgia Tech as part of their learning. Short episodes. 

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Hear us out! The science of second language listening from the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Words Unravelled Rob Watts (aka RobWords) and Jess Zafarris unravel the stories behind everyday terms. 

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno. 

Mexendo com a Língua A Spanish language podcast about linguistics, literature, culture, and more from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the Federal University of São Carlos.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Spanish language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Saussure e grida An Italian language podcast about linguistics from Irene Lami.

Ma langue maternelle n'est pas la langue de ma mère a French language podcast about the diversity of languages.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

• Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.
  
• Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.
• Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.
  

• The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

• How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)
• Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.
  
• The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.
• Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

• The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.
  
• Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)
• Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)
• Linguistics with Laura: 14 episodes from 2020/2021using the An Introduction To Language (Fromkin et al.) textbook as a basis. 
• Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.
• Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)
  
• LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)
• Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.
• Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.
  
• Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.
• Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.
  
• The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.
  
• Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)
• Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.
• WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)
• Sage Language and Linguistics
• Let’s Talk Talk
• Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe
• GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.
  
• Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.
  
• Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 
• Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.
  
• Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.
• Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.
• Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.
  

This is an updated listing from December 2024. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! I wait until a show has at least 5 episodes before I add it to the list, and I like to let people know when transcripts are available.

2025 update!

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 107: Urban Multilingualism

When we try to represent languages on a map, it’s common to assign each language a zone or a point which represents some idea of where it’s used or where it comes from. But in reality, people move around, and many cities are host to hundreds of languages that don’t show up on official records.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about urban multilingualism! We talk about a recent book we’ve been enjoying called Language City by Ross Perlin, about the over 700 languages spoken in New York City, as well as how we’ve noticed urban multilingualism for ourselves in Melbourne, Montreal, and elsewhere. We also talk about organizations that work with communities interested in reclaiming space for their languages, what linguistic rights are, and how to tell if yours are being taken away from you.

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about linguistic landscapes! We talk about contrasts between the signs in the Chinatowns of Montreal and Melbourne, renaming streets from colonial names to names in First Nations languages, how signs can show the shifting demographics of tourism in an area, and how bi- and multilingual Lost Cat signs show what languages people think their neighbours understand. We also talk about our most absurd sign stories, including the Russell Family Apology Plaque, and creative imaginings of official signage, such as the Latin no-smoking sign in a modern-day British train station.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• ‘Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York’ by Ross Perlin on Bookshop and Amazon
• Wikipedia entry for N'Ko script
• Endangered Language Alliance
• The Endangered Languages Project Mentor Program
• Wikitongues
• Living Tongues Language Sustainability Toolkit
• Living Languages
• The Global Coalition for Language Rights Global Language Advocacy Days
• The GCLR Statement on Understanding and Defending Language Rights
• How we Created the GCLR’s Statement on Understanding and Defending Language Rights
• Say it with Respect: A Journalists’ Guide to Reporting on Indigenous and Minoritized Languages
• Living Dictionaries
• Gretchen’s thread on Living Dictionaries
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ‘Linguistic Advice - Challenging grammar snobs, finding linguistics community, accents in singing, and more’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Episode 106: Is a hotdog a sandwich? The problem with definitions

We asked you if a burrito was a sandwich, and you said ‘no’. We asked you if ravioli was a sandwich and you said 'heck no’. We asked you if an ice cream sandwich was a sandwich and things…started to get a little murky. This isn’t just a sandwich problem: you can also have similar arguments about what counts as a cup, a bird, a fish, furniture, art, and more! 

So wait…does any word mean anything anymore? Have we just broken language??  It’s okay, linguistics has a solution! 

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about why deciding what’s in and what’s out of the definition of a word is so dang tricky, why people love to argue about it, and how prototype theory solves all the “is X a Y” arguments once and for all. 

Note that this episode originally aired as Bonus 9: Is X a sandwich? Solving the word-meaning argument once and for all. We’ve added an updated announcements section to the top and a few new things about prototypes and meaning to the end. We’re excited to share one of our favourite bonus episodes from Patreon with a broader audience, while at the same time giving everyone who works on the show a bit of a break.

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about fictional gestures with Eric Molinsky, host of Imaginary Worlds, a podcast about sci-fi, fantasy and other genres of speculative fiction! We talk about the Vulcan salute from Star Trek, the Wakanda Forever salute from Black Panther, and the three-finger Hunger Games salute, and how all three have crossed over with additional symbolism into the real world. We also talk about gestures that have crossed over in the other direction, from the real-world origins of the Vulcan salute in a Jewish blessing, the two-finger blessing in the Foundation tv series from classical Latin and Greek oratory via Christian traditions, as well as religious gesture in the Penric and Desdemona series, smiles and shrugs in A Memory Called Empire, and more.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Original episode on Patreon: ’Is X a sandwich? Solving the word-meaning argument once and for all’
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ’Liveshow Q and eh’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Prototype Theory’
• 'Memes in Digital Culture’ by Limor Shifman
• Ann Leckie on Fangirl Happy Hour 
• Jaffa cake: cake or biscuit? (UK)
• Crostini: bread or biscuit? (Aus)
• Tomato: fruit or vegetable?
• cup vs. bowl vs. vase 
• cup vs. mug 
• No Such Thing as a Fish (podcast)
• Wikipedia entry for 'Harlem Shake’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Numa Numa’
• Wikipedia entry for ’Gangnam Style’
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Translating the untranslatable’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 105: Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are an evolving genre of media: short-form, vertical videos that take up your whole screen and are served to you from an algorithm rather than who you follow. This changes how people talk in them compared to earlier forms of video, and linguists are on it!

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the linguistics of tiktok with Adam Aleksic, better known on social media as etymologynerd. We talk about how Adam got his start into linguistics via etymology, the process that he goes through to make his current videos get the attention of people and algorithms, and how different forms of media (like podcasts vs shortform video) relate differently to their audiences. We also talk about the challenges of writing a book about language on the internet when it changes so fast, comparing the writing process for Adam’s upcoming book Algospeak with Gretchen’s book Because Internet.

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

Announcements:

In celebration of our 100th bonus episode we’ve decided to go back into the vault and revisit our very first bonus episode - with updated sweary commentary! We’ve made this extra bonus bonus version available to all patrons, free and paid, so feel free to send it to your friends!

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about your linguistics questions! In honour of our 100th bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, and because our first advice episode was so popular, here’s another episode answering your advice questions, from the serious to the silly!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Adam Aleksic’s website
• etymologynerd on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack
• Algospeak by Adam Aleksic
• ‘Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022’ by Aidan Walker for Know Your Meme
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Emoji are Gesture Because Internet’
• Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
• 'It’s Complicated - The Social Lives of Networked Teens’ by Danah Boyd (pdf)
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ’Words from your family: Familects!’
• 'Language and the Internet’ by David Crystal (2001)
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Bonus 100.5: Our very first swearing bonus episode, now unlocked! | Lingthusiasm

Get more from Lingthusiasm on Patreon

Patreon

Bonus 100.5: Our very first swearing bonus episode, now unlocked!

In this bonus bonus episode, extra special bonus edition from the vault, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about our first sweary episode! We talk about real swears and words that may look or sound like swear words in one language but are completely innocuous in another (such as the mysteriously English-sweary word for “seal” in several European languages), the semantic bleaching of words like “sucks” and “rawdogging”, the experimentally-tested difference between swears and slurs, and how swearing can help if you (literally) find yourself in hot water.

This episode originally aired as our very first bonus episode in 2017, and in honour of our 100th bonus episode in 2025 we’ve made this version of it with updated sweary commentary available to all patrons, free and paid, so feel free to send it to your friends! Drop your favourite sweary facts in the comments below for others to enjoy.

Regular bonus episodes (and our entire back catalogue of 100 bonus episodes) are available for patrons at the Ling-thusiast tier or higher or you can purchase a one-time collection of all our book-themed bonus episodes or all our spiciest bonus episodes (including much more swearing), but we’re also really happy when people just give us their email address to get occasional updates as free members, so sometimes we’ll give you surprise perks like this one!

Listen to this episode about real and pseudo-swears for free by giving us a your email address on Patreon.

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 104: Reading and language play in Sámi - Interview with Hanna-Máret Outakoski

When we talk about language reclamation, we often think about oral traditions. But at this point, many Indigenous languages also have considerable written traditions, and engaging with writing as part of teaching these languages to children is important for all of the same reasons as we teach writing in majoritarian languages.

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about multilingual literacy with Dr. Hanna-Máret Outakoski, who’s a professor of Sámi languages at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, Norway. We talk about growing up with a mix of Northern Sámi, Finnish, Norwegian, and English, as well as how Hanna-Máret got into linguistics and shifted her interests from more formal to more community-based work, such as “language showers” and the role of play in language learning. We also talk about the long history of literature in Sámi, from joiks written down as early as the 1500s to how people are still joiking today (including on Eurovision), and how teaching kids writing can strengthen oral traditions.

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the linguistics of kissing]! We talk about the technical phonetics terms for kissing (bilabial clicks…plus the classic ling student quadrilabial clicks joke) as well as how different cultures taxonomize types of kissing (the Roman osculum/basium/suavium distinction is still pretty useful!). We also talk about how toddlers acquire the “blow a kiss” gesture, how couples time their kisses around their sentences, and many ways of representing kissing in writing, such as xx, xoxo, and emoji.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. If you join before July 1st you’ll get a sticker of a special jazzed-up version of the Lingthusiasm logo featuring fun little drawings from the past 8.5 years of enthusiasm about linguistics by our artist Lucy Maddox! There’s a leaping Gavagai rabbit, bouba and kiki shapes, and more…see how many items you can recognize!

We’re also running a poll for current patreon supports to vote on the final sticker design! This sticker will go out to everyone who’s a patron at the Lingthusiast level or higher as of July 1st, 2025.

We’re also hoping that this sticker special offer encourages people to join and stick around as we need to do an inflation-related price increase at the Lingthusiast level. Our coffee hasn’t cost us five bucks in a while now, and we need to keep paying the team who enables us to keep making the show amid our other linguistics prof-ing and writing jobs.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Hanna-Máret Outakoski (university profile)
• ‘Developing Literacy Research in Sápmi’ by Hanna Outakoski
• 'Giellariššu: Indigenous language revitalisation in the city’ by Hanna-Máret Outakoski and Øystein A. Vangsnes (language showers)
• 'An introduction to joik’ by Juhán Niila Stålka
• Wikipedia entry for 'Joik’
• Sami voices / Sáme jiena (for more information on the archiving of joiks)
• 'Developing Literacy Research in Sápmi’ by Hanna Outakoski
• 'Conceptualizing fireside dialogues as gulahallan’ by Hanna-Máret Outakoski
• 'What is indigenous research methodology?’ paper on Relational Accountability by Shawn Wilson
• Northern Oral Language And Writing Through Play
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori - Interview with Ake Nicholas’
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Connecting with oral culture’

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Transcript Episode 104: Reading and language play in Sámi - Interview with Hanna-Máret Outakoski

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘Reading and language play in Sámi - Interview with Hanna-Máret Outakoski’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch. I’m here with Dr. Hanna-Máret Outakoski, who’s a professor of Sámi languages at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, Norway. She’s a native speaker of Northern Sámi and Finnish and fluent speaker of Swedish. She can read German and uses English mainly for academic publishing purposes. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about multilingual literacy.

But first, some announcements! We’ve commissioned a jazzed up version of the Lingthusiasm logo with fun little doodles in the classic shape of the Lingthusiasm squiggle adorning your podcast reader right now – now filled in with some linguistics and Lingthusiasm references in little, tiny doodles. See how many you can spot! We’re gonna be sending out a sticker with this new design to everyone who’s a patron at the Ling-thusiast level and higher as of July 1, 2025. If you wanna get this sticker that can adore your laptop, water bottle, and help maybe connect you to other people who are enthusiastic about linguistics, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm. If you just wanna see a version of this sticker and see how many of the little doodles you can identify, you can go to lingthusiasm.com or @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. We’ll be posting about it a lot. Our artist, Lucy Maddox, did a really great job, and we’re so excited to share this design with you.

Our most recent bonus episode was about the linguistics of kissing from the physical articulation of kisses – which involves the mouth, much like many linguistic things – as well as the social significance of kissing in various ways, various times to various classes of people, to writing kisses as Xs and with emoji. All of that and 98 other bonus episodes at patreon.com/lingthusiasm help keep the show going.

[Music]

Gretchen: Hello, Hanna-Máret, welcome to the show.

Hanna-Máret: Hi!

Gretchen: It’s so nice to have you here.

Hanna-Máret: It’s really good to be here.

Gretchen: We’re gonna get into more of your work later, but let’s start with the question that we ask all of our guests, which is, “How did you get interested in linguistics?”

Hanna-Máret: I grew up in a multilingual region in northern Finland that’s as far north in Europe as one can get. In my childhood, most people living there, they knew my Indigenous heritage language (that’s Northern Sámi), and they also spoke either Finnish or Norwegian or both. We also learned a lot of English in school and through TV. My home was also right at the border of Finland and Norway. There was only a river marking the state border. Some languages float quite freely in that region. For many people, knowing languages was quite natural. Most people didn’t think so much about the languages, but my father was always talking about some linguistic traits or challenges or other matters. He was a special teacher and had always had an interest in languages and for linguistics. His language enthusiasm spread into my life very early. He also read to me and encouraged me to read a lot in different languages, and then we used to talk about the literature afterwards. I was also really fascinated by the language knowledge and cultural knowledge that my Sámi relatives had, although most of them were not academics. The Sámi speakers in the generation before mine were actually the last ones to grow up speaking mainly Sámi. Their language was so beautiful and so effortless. I decided quite young that I would pursue a career working with my heritage language and do my best to support its survival.

Gretchen: That led you into linguistics.

Hanna-Máret: Yeah, but first I considered a career as a translator or interpreter. I actually got a basic training in that also. But I worked as an interpreter mostly just to make some money so that I could continue studying at the university. I studied Sámi, Finnish, linguistics, pedagogy, and I got a bachelor’s degree in Sámi language. Some of my professors then encouraged me to reach for the master’s degree and then continue with the PhD.

Gretchen: Did you go right into Sámi language revitalisation work, or were you doing more academic stuff?

Hanna-Máret: Well, my first attempt with the PhD was actually in formal linguistics. I was working on reflexivity and reciprocity in Sámi and this more specifically with Government and Binding Theory, which had, at that time, not yet lost its glory. I actually never finished the thesis. Instead, my teaching responsibilities grew every year, and I started noticing that I was more interested in the use of language than in some isolated syntactic structure. I don’t want anyone to get me wrong here. I’m really grateful for having acquired a base in formal linguistics since it has given me the tools not only to describe my language but also to problematise and solve some issues that our traditional, prescriptive grammars in some languages are not able to explain. It’s just that, at some point, I started thinking more about the work that was needed to keep the language in daily use and not just the structures.

Gretchen: But you have a doctorate now. You went back and did something else?

Hanna-Máret: My second attempt to finish the doctoral degree was, happily, a bit more successful, and I get the chance to gather texts written by multilingual Sámi children in three countries. Me and my colleagues, we used something that’s called “keystroke logging” to trace the ways our writers express their thoughts and ideas in three languages. I really found that project very inspiring, although it also showed me how challenging it can be to work with schools and pupils. After that PhD, I got a chance to do my postdoctoral studies within applied linguistics and educational sciences.

Gretchen: Three languages – that would be Sámi, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish? That’s four.

Hanna-Máret: I was in three countries. It was the majority language of all the countries. In Finland, Finnish; in Sweden, Swedish; and in Norway Norwegian. All the kids here in Nordic countries also study English, so that was the third language.

Gretchen: Okay. The third language depending on the country they did – yeah. Did you bring all of these different backgrounds together?

Keep reading

lingthusiasm:

103: A hand-y guide to gesture

Gestures: every known language has them, and there’s a growing body of research on how they fit into communication. But academic literature can be hard to dig into on your own. So Lauren has spent the past 5 years diving into the gesture literature and boiling it down into a tight 147 page book.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about Lauren’s new book, Gesture: A Slim Guide from Oxford University Press. Is it a general audience book? An academic book? A bit of both. (Please enjoy our highlights version in this episode, a slim guide to the Slim Guide, if you will.) We talk about the wacky hijinks gesture researchers have gotten up to with the aim of preventing people from gesturing without tipping them off that the study is about gesture, including a tricked-out “coloured garden relax chair” that makes people “um” more, as well as crosslinguistic gestural connections between signed and spoken languages, and how Gretchen’s gestures in English have been changing after a year of ASL classes. Plus, a few behind-the-scenes moments: Lauren putting a line drawing of her very first gesture study on the cover, and how the emoji connection from Because Internet made its way into Gesture (and also into the emoji on your phone right now).

There were also many other gesture stories that we couldn’t fit in this episode, so keep an eye out for Lauren doing guest interviews on other podcasts! We’ll add them to the crossovers page and the Lingthusiasm hosts elsewhere playlist as they come up. And if there are any other shows you’d like to hear a gesture episode on, feel free to tell them to chat to Lauren!

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

Announcements:

We’ve made a special jazzed-up version of the Lingthusiasm logo to put on stickers, featuring fun little drawings from the past 8.5 years of enthusiasm about linguistics by our artist Lucy Maddox. There’s a leaping Gavagai rabbit, bouba and kiki shapes, and more…see how many items you can recognize!

This sticker (or possibly a subtle variation…stay tuned for an all-patron vote!) will go out to everyone who’s a patron at the Lingthusiast level or higher as of July 1st, 2025.

We’re also hoping that this sticker special offer encourages people to join and stick around as we need to do an inflation-related price increase at the Lingthusiast level. As we mentioned on the last bonus episode, our coffee hasn’t cost us five bucks in a while now, and we need to keep paying the team who enables us to keep making the show amid our other linguistics prof-ing and writing jobs. In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about linguist celebrities! We talk about start with the historically famous Brothers Grimm and quickly move onto modern people of varying levels of fame, including a curiously large number of linguistics figure skaters. We also talk about a few people who are famous within linguistics, including a recent memoir by Noam Chomsky’s assistant Bev Stohl about what it was like keeping him fueled with coffee. And finally, we reflect on running into authors of papers we’ve read at conferences, when people started recognizing us sometimes, and our tips and scripts for navigating celebrity encounters from both sides.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• ‘Gesture: A Slim Guide’ by Lauren Gawne
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Emoji are Gesture Because Internet’
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou’
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge’
• 'Gesture, Speech, and Lexical Access: The Role of Lexical Movements in Speech Production’ by Rauscher et al.
• 'Effects of Visual Accessibility and Hand Restraint on Fluency of Gesticulator and Effectiveness of Message’ by Karen P. Lickiss and A. Rodney Wellens
• 'Effects of relative immobilization on the speaker’s nonverbal behavior and on the dialogue imagery level’ by Rimé et al.
• 'The effects of elimination of hand gestures and of verbal codability on speech performance’ by J. A. Graham and S. Heywood

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 102: The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf

It’s a fun science fiction trope: learn a mysterious alien language and acquire superpowers, just like if you’d been zapped by a cosmic ray or bitten by a radioactive spider. But what’s the linguistics behind this idea found in books like Babel-17, Embassytown, or the movie Arrival?

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about the science and fiction of linguistic relativity, popularly known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We talk about a range of different things that people mean when they refer to this hypothesis: a sciencey-sounding way to introduce obviously fictional concepts like time travel or mind control, a reflection that we add new words all the time as convenient handles to talk about new concepts, a note that grammatical categories can encourage us to pay attention to specific areas in the world (but aren’t the only way of doing so), a social reflection that we feel like different people in different environments (which can sometimes align with different languages, though not always). We also talk about several genuine areas of human difference that linguistic relativity misses: different perceptive experiences like synesthesia and aphantasia, as well as how we lump sounds into categories based on what’s relevant to a given language.

Finally, we talk about the history of where the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis comes from, why Benjamin Lee Whorf would have been great on TikTok, and why versions of this idea keep bouncing back in different guises as a form of curiosity about the human condition no matter how many specific instances get disproven.

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about two sets of updates! We talk about the results from the 2024 listener survey (we learned which one of us you think is more kiki and more bouba!), and our years in review (book related news for both Lauren and Gretchen), plus exciting news for the coming year.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany on Goodreads
• Lingthusiasm episode on the linguistics of the movie Arrival
• History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences podcast episode 31: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• Wikipedia entry for ‘Edward Sapir’
• ‘The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’ by Harry Hoijer (1954) (archive.org)
• Wikipedia entry for 'Ekkehart Malotki’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Hopi time controversy’
• 'Key is a llave is a Schlüssel: A failure to replicate an experiment from Boroditsky et al. 2003’ by Anne Mickan, Maren Schiefke, and Anatol Stefanowitsch
• 'Do Chinese and English speakers think about time differently? Failure of replicating Boroditsky (2001)’ by Jenn-Yeu Chen
• 'Does grammatical gender affect object concepts? Registered replication of Phillips and Boroditsky (2003)’ by Nan Elpers, Greg Jensen, and Kevin J. Holmes
• 'Future tense and saving money: no correlation when controlling for cultural evolution’ by Seán G. Roberts, James Winters, and Keith Chen
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ‘North, left, or towards the sea? Interview with Alice Gaby’
• 'Samuel R. Delany, The Art of Fiction No. 210’ Interview by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah for The Paris Review (unpaywalled photos here)

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

In some ways I’ve been preparing to do this episode since my first year of undergrad linguistics.

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 101: Micro to macro - The levels of language

When we first learn about nature, we generally start with the solid mid-sized animals: cats, dogs, elephants, tigers, horses, birds, turtles, and so on. Only later on do we zoom in and out from these charismatic megafauna to the tinier levels, like cells and bacteria, or the larger levels, like ecosystems and the water cycle. With language, words are the easily graspable charismatic megafauna (charismatic megaverba?), from which there are both micro levels (like sounds, handshapes, and morphemes) and macro levels (like sentences, conversations, and narratives).

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch take advantage of the aptly numbered 101th episode to get enthusiastic about linguistics from the micro to macro perspective often found in Linguistics 101 classes. We start with sounds and handshapes, moving onto accents and sound changes, fitting affixes into words, words into sentences, and sentences into discourse. We also talk about areas of linguistics that involve language at all these levels at once, including historical linguistics, child language acquisition, linguistic fieldwork, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. Plus: why we don’t follow this order for Lingthusiasm episodes or Crash Course Linguistics and how you can give yourself a DIY intro linguistics course.

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

Announcements:

To celebrate Lingthusiasm now having more than 100 episodes, we have compiled a list of 101 places where you can get even more linguistics enthusiasm! This is your one-stop-shop if you want suggestions for other podcasts, books, videos, blogs, and other places online and offline to feed your interest in linguistics. Even with a hundred and one options, we’re sure there’s still a few that we’ve missed, so also feel free to tag us @ lingthusiasm on social media about your favourites! 

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about what psycholinguistics can tell us about creative writing, with Julie Sedivy, psycholinguist and the author of Memory Speaks and Linguaphile! We talk about moving from the style of scientific writing to literary writing by writing a lot of unpublished poetry to develop her aesthetic sense, how studying linguistics for a writer is like studying anatomy for a sculptor or colour theory for a painter, and how you could set up an eyetracking study to help writers figure out which sentences make their readers slow down.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

• Lingthusiasm episodes by topic
• Corinna Bechko ‘smallrus’ post on Bluesky
• Donkey Kong structural ambiguity and novel sentence example post on All Things Linguistic
• Auslan Signbank entry for 'my, mine’
• Taiwanese Sign Language Online Dictionary handshape list
• Our aesthetic IPA chart merch!
• ASL sign for 'student’ by @aslu on YouTube - formal version and informal version
• Crash Course Linguistics
• 'Quantifier Scope Jokes’ post on All Things Linguistics
• ’Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong Historical Records Reinstated After Multi-Year Dispute With Twin Galaxies’ article by Kat Bailey on IGN
• Wikipedia entry for 'President of the Republic of China’
• Wikipedia entry for Hank Chien
• Smallrus artwork by ursulav on Deviant Art
• Nix Illustration post on smallrus in the historical record

Lingthusiasm episodes mentioned:

• 'Schwa, the most versatile English vowel’
• 'All the sounds in all the languages - the International Phonetic Alphabet’
• 'Sounds you can’t hear - Babies, accents, and phonemes’
• 'Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization’
• 'Climbing the sonority mountain from A to P’
• Who questions the questions?
• Brunch, gonna, and fozzle - The smooshing episode
• That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
• Word order, we love
• The bridge between words and sentences - Constituency
• Cool things about scales and implicature
• Scoping out the scope of scope
• Layers of meaning - Cooperation, humour, and Gricean Maxims
• How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
• Corpus linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta
• Making speech visible with spectrograms

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

lingthusiasm:

10 most popular Lingthusiasm episodes

In honour of the 100th episode of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, here is our most popular episode from each “decade” of Lingthusiasm! 

Episode 01 - 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!  

Episode 13 - What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday

If you grow up with multiple accents to choose from, what does the one you choose say about your identity? How can linguistics unpick our hidden assumptions about what “sounds angry” or “sounds articulate”? What can we learn from studying the melodies of speech, in addition to the words and sounds? 

Episode 25 - Every word is a real word

We don’t point at a chair or a tree and assert that it’s not a word. Of course it’s not! So why, then, do people feel called to question the wordhood of actual words?  

Episode 39 - How to rebalance a lopsided conversation

Why do some conversations seem to flow really easily, while other times, it feels like you can’t get a word in edgewise, or that the other person isn’t holding up their end of the conversation? 

Episode 49 - How translators approach a text

How do translators decide whether to more closely follow the literal structure of the text or to adapt more freely? 

Episode 59 - Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind 

We talk about the highly important role of gossip in the development of language, reframing how we introduce people to something they haven’t heard of yet, and ways of synchronizing mental states across groups of people, from conferences to movie voiceovers.

Episode 68 - Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages

When societies of humans come into contact, they’ll often pick up words from each other. When this is happening actively in the minds of multilingual people, it gets called codeswitching; when it happened long before anyone alive can remember, it’s more likely to get called etymology.

Episode 72 - What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd

We answer absurd hypothetical linguistic questions from special guest Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd

Episode 80 - Word magic

The magical kind of spell and the written kind of spell are historically linked. Saying a word can change the state of the world, both in terms of fictional magic spells and in terms of the real-world linguistics 

Episode 90 - What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are

Vowels are a significant component of what we think of as someone’s accent, so we commissioned custom vowel diagrams and explore how they’re made and what factors might affect your vowels.

My favourite episode of Lingthusiasm is usually the one that’s about whatever topic I’m currently talking to you about. It makes me so happy to have found a project that lets me keep talking about ALL of the linguistics.

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 100: A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics

This is our hundredth episode that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! To celebrate, we’ve put together 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics, featuring contributions from previous guests and Lingthusiasm team members, fan favourites that resonated with you from the previous 99 episodes, and new facts that haven’t been on the show before but might star in one of the next 100 episodes in greater detail.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne talk about brains, gesture, etymology, famous example sentences, languages by the numbers, a few special facts about the word “hundred” and way more! This episode is both a fun overview of the vibe of Lingthusiam if you’ve never listened before, and a bonus bingo card game for diehard fans to see how many facts you can recognize.

We also invite you to share this episode alongside one of your favourite fun facts about linguistics and help more people find Lingthusiasm in honour of our 100th episodiversary! Whether you pick something new that resonates from this episode, or share the fact you were sitting on the edge of your seat hoping we’d mention, we look forward to staying Lingthusiastic with you for the next 100 episodes.

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

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we 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 interview with phonetician Jacq Jones, previously seen talking about how binary and non-binary people talk. Then, we return to computational linguist Emily M. Bender to talk about how Emily’s students made a computational model of Lauren’s grammar of Lamjung Yolmo and how linguistics is a team sport. Finally, we return to our group interview with the team behind Tom Scott’s Language Files to talk about sneaky Icelandic jokes and the unedited behind-the-scenes version of the gif/gif joke.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links and citations mentioned in the episode:

• Wikipedia entry for ‘Writing system’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Punctuation’
• Wikipedia entry for “Okina’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Hamza’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Glottal’
• 'Fneeze’ blog post from EtymologyNerd
• Etymonline entry for 'kn-’ prefix
• Calque is a loanword; loanword is a calque on Tom Scott’s Language Files
• 'When You Think About It, Your Past Is in Front of You: How Culture Shapes Spatial Conceptions of Time’ by Juanma De la Fuent et al
• Wikipedia entry for 'Jabberwocky’
• 'Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages’ by Damián E. Blasi et al
• Wikipedia entry for 'Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den’
• 'Reading Senseless Sentences: Brain Potentials Reflect Semantic Incongruity’ by Marta Kutas and Steven A. Hillyard
• Wikipedia entry for 'Zeugma and syllepsis’
• Pi(e) facts post on Bluesky from Gretchen
• Glottolog entry for 'Family: Indo-European’
• Glottolog entry for 'Family: Austronesian’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Languages of Papua New Guinea’
• List of the worlds languages on Glottolog
• 'How Many Stars Are There in the Sky?’ by Megan Garber on The Atlantic
• Glottolog entry for 'Pseudo Family: Sign Language’
• 'Biography of Laurent Clerc’ post on Gallaudet University website
• 'Q&A: How Pro-Tactile American Sign Language — PTASL — is changing the conversation’ by Jaimi Lard and Christine Dwyer on Perkins.org
• 'Feeling the signs: tactile Auslan’ post from Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators Inc
• 'How do we know if they could speak?’ by Fran Dorey for Australian Museum
• 'If you say thee uh you are describing something hard: The on-line attribution of disfluency during reference comprehension’ by J. E. Arnold, C. L. H. Kam. & M. K. Tanenhaus
• 'The effect of disfluency on memory for what was said’ by E. Diachek, & S. Brown-Schmidt
• Wikipedia entry for ’Gender Neutrality’ and ’Neopronoun’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Centum and satem languages’
• Wikipedia entry for 'Long hundred’

Lingthusiasm episodes mentioned:

• What it means for a language to be official
• Writing is a technology
• Word Magic
• Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages
• Colour words around the world and inside your brain
• Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
• What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
• Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences
• Bonus episode ’The episode-episode (Reduplication)’
• Bonus episode ’When letters have colours and time is a braid - The linguistics of synesthesia’
• Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace
• How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
• Talking and thinking about time
• This time it gets tense - The grammar of time
• Bonus episode ’Is X a sandwich? Solving the word-meaning argument once and for all’
• Bonus episode ’LingthusiASMR - The Harvard Sentences’

Merch mentioned in this episode:

• Space Pigeon and Space Babies merch
• Little Longitudinal Language Acquisition Project

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 Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky 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 assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. 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).

Celebrating 100 episodes of Lingthusiasm!