Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Канал маалыматтары
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. "A fascinating listen that will change the way you see everyday communications." –New York Times. "Joyously nerdy" –Buzzfeed. Weird and deep half-hour conversations about language on the third Thursday of the...
Жаңы эпизоддор
108 эпизод
108: Highs and lows of tone in Babanki - Interview with Pius Akumbu
Linguistic research has its highs and lows: from staging a traditional wedding to learn about ceremonial words to having your efforts to found a villa...
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 wh...
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 cre...
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...
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 wri...
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 har...
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...
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 o...
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...
99: A politeness episode, if you please
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, if you have a spare half hour, could we possibly suggest that you might enjoy listening to this episode on politen...
98: Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender
When a human learns a new word, we're learning to attach that word to a set of concepts in the real world. When a computer "learns" a new word, it is...
97: OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog...
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get e...
96: Welcome back aboard the metaphor train!
We're taking you on a journey to new linguistic destinations, so come along for the ride and don't forget to hold on!
In this episode, y...
95: Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!
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 the...
94: The perfectly imperfect aspect episode
When we're talking about an activity -- say, throwing teacups in a lake -- we often want to know not just when the action takes place, but also what...
93: How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones
There are many ways that people perform gender, from clothing and hairstyle to how we talk or carry ourselves. When doing linguistic analysis of one a...
92: Brunch, gonna, and fozzle - The smooshing episode
Sometimes two words are smooshed together in a single act of creativity to fill a lexical gap, like making "brunch" from breakfast+lunch. Other times,...
91: Scoping out the scope of scope
When you order a kebab and they ask you if you want everything on it, you might say yes. But you'd probably still be surprised if it came with say, ch...
90: What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are
On Lingthusiasm, we've sometimes compared the human vocal tract to a giant meat clarinet, like the vocal folds are the reed and the rest of the throat...
89: Connecting with oral culture
For tens of thousands of years, humans have transmitted long and intricate stories to each other, which we learned directly from witnessing other peop...
88: No such thing as the oldest language
It's easy to find claims that certain languages are old or even the oldest, but which one is actually true? Fortunately, there's an easy (though unsat...
87: If I were an irrealis episode
Language lets us talk about things that aren't, strictly speaking, entirely real. Sometimes that's an imaginative object (is a toy sword a real sword?...
86: Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
Basque is a language of Europe which is unrelated to the Indo-European languages around it or any other recorded language. As a minority language, Bas...
85: Ergativity delights us
When you have a sentence like "I visit them", the word order and the shape of the words tell you that it means something different from "they visit me...
84: Look, it's deixis, an episode about pointing!
Pointing creates an invisible line between a part of your body and the thing you're pointing at. Humans are really good at producing and understanding...
83: How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro
Young kids growing up in Guatemala often learn Q’anjob’al, Kaq’chikel, or another Mayan language from their families and communities. But they don’t l...
82: Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences
Linguists are often interested in comparing several languages or dialects. To make this easier, it’s useful to have data that’s relatively similar acr...
81: The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries
In the sentence “the horse has eaten an apple”, what is the word “has” doing? It’s not expressing ownership of something, like in “the horse has an ap...
80: Word Magic
The magical kind of spell and the written kind of spell are historically linked. This reflects how saying a word can change the state of the world, bo...
79: Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation!
Spoken languages can change the pitch or melody of words to convey several different kinds of information. When the pitch affects the meaning of the w...
78: Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge
Communicating is about more than the literal, dictionary-entry-style words that we say -- it’s also about the many subtle ingredients that go into a m...
77: How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting
Singapore is a small city-state nation with four official languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. Most Singaporeans can also speak a local hyb...
76: Where language names come from and why they change
Language names come from many sources. Sometimes they’re related to a geographical feature or name of a group of people. Sometimes they’re related to...
75: Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions
Emotions are a universal part of the human experience, but the specific ways we express them are mediated through language. For example, English uses...
74: Who questions the questions?
We use questions to ask people for information (who’s there?), but we can also use them to make a polite request (could you pass me that?), to confirm...
73: The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory
Maps of languages of the world are fun to look at, but they’re also often suspiciously precise: a suspiciously round number of languages, like 7000, m...
72: What If Linguistics - Absurd hypothetical questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd
What’s the “it’s” in “it’s three pm and hot”? How do you write a cough in the International Phonetic Alphabet? Who is the person most likely to speak...
71: Various vocal fold vibes
Partway down your throat are two flaps of muscle. When you breathe normally, you pull the flaps away to the sides, and air comes out silently. But if...
70: Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko
Your brain is where language - and all of your other thinking - happens. In order to figure out how language fits in among all of the other things you...
69: What we can, must, and should say about modals
Sometimes, we use language to make definite statements about how the world is. Other times, we get more hypothetical, and talk about how things could...