Why do some kinds of conversations seems 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?
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne have a conversation about the structure of conversations! Conversat...
2019-12-19 21:49:36 +0000 UTC View Post
We all know cows go 'moo', sheep go 'baa' and ducks go 'queck'... well medieval English ducks did. Dutch cows go 'boe' /bu/ and Korean sheep go 음매 (eum-mae). What is it about sounds that make a sheep sound like a sheep, and how can the name of an ice cream flavour make it sound more delicious?
In this bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, Lauren tests Gretchen on Syuba onom...
2019-12-06 01:28:22 +0000 UTC View Post
In English you have one book, and three books. In Arabic you have one kitaab, and three kutub. In Nepali it’s one kitab, and three kitabharu, but sometimes it’s three kitab.
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, Gretchen and Lauren look at the many ways that languages talk about how many of something there are, ranging from common distinctions like singular, plural, and dual, to more typol...
2019-11-21 23:59:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Like many linguists, we have a difficult time turning the linguist part of our brains off -- which makes reading fiction particularly fun! Sometimes we're lucky enough that there's fiction that features linguists or a dedicated constructed language, but even when that's not the case, language is an interesting part of worldbuilding or narrative voice in a lot of books.
In this bonus...
2019-11-07 22:31:38 +0000 UTC View Post
What’s your favourite smell? You might say something like the smell of fresh ripe strawberries, or the smell of freshly-cut grass. But if we asked what your favourite colour is, you might say red or green, but you wouldn’t say the colour of strawberries or grass. Why is it that we have so much more vocabulary for colours than for scents?
In this epi...
2019-10-17 22:21:36 +0000 UTC View Post
We are delighted to announce that by popular demand, you can now get lingthustiastic socks!
That's right, our three prints (International Phonetic Alphabet, tree diagrams, and esoteric symbols) can now 2019-10-17 04:53:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Not everyone has a surname, but for many people surnames are a personal or cultural story wrapped up in a convenient little package.
In this bonus episode we get enthusiastic about surnames! We talked about where our own surnames come from, surname-formation strategies from different cultures, people changing and not changing their surnames, and surnames that are common and uncommon...
2019-10-04 00:38:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Larger, national signed languages, like American Sign Language and British Sign Language, often have relatively well-established laboratory-based research traditions, whereas smaller signed languages, such as those found in villages with a high proportion of deaf residents, aren’t studied as much. When we look at signed languages in the context of these smaller communities, we can also think ...
2019-09-20 01:28:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Our cohost Gretchen McCulloch wrote a book about internet linguistics (in case you haven't heard haha) which hit the New York Times bestseller list the first week it was out! We've been enjoying seeing all your posts and photos about Because Internet -- it is very much thanks to all your preorders and regular orders that it's been doing so well!
In this bonus episode, Lauren asks Gr...
2019-09-05 23:10:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Sometimes a syllable is jam-packed with sounds, like the single-syllable word “strengths”. Other times, a syllable is as simple as a single vowel or consonant+vowel, like the two syllables in “a-ha!” It’s kind of like a burger: you might pack your burger with tons of toppings, or go as simple as a patty by itself on a plate, but certain combinations ...
2019-08-16 00:45:48 +0000 UTC View Post
We just wanted to let any procrastinators know that you have one more day to upgrade to the new "ling-phabet" tier and get a free signed BECAUSE INTERNET bookplate sent to you in the mail!
(The deadline is August 15 in any timezone, which might mean that Patreon will let you sneak by for a few hours into August 16 where you are, but don't count on it!!!)
This is an easie...
2019-08-14 21:15:17 +0000 UTC View Post
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 bonus episode, we get enthusiastic about metaphors! It's easy to think of literary comparisons like "my love is like a red, red rose" but metaphors are also far more common and almost unnoticed in regular conversation as well. For example, English speakers of...
2019-08-01 23:40:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Emoji make a lot of headlines, but what happens when you actually drill down into the data for how people integrate emoji into our everyday messages? It turns out that how we use emoji has a surprising number of similarities with how we use gesture.
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic abo...
2019-07-18 23:25:05 +0000 UTC View Post
People have been asking, is there a way that we can support Lingthusiasm for a bit more per month than the bonus episodes tier?
People have also been asking, is there a way to get a signed copy of Gretchen's new book without paying for a pretty heavy hardcover book to get shipped (often internationally) from Montreal or happening to be at a conference where she's speaking?
... 2019-07-11 18:29:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Do you have any words that you only use within your family? We asked this question on social media a while back and you had some great responses!
In this episode, we get enthusiastic about familects. Also written family-lects, this is the term linguists use for the unique vocabulary that develops among families and similar tightly-knit relationship groups. Many familect words are fo...
2019-07-04 23:48:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Why does “gh” make different sounds in “though” “through” “laugh” “light” and “ghost”? Why is there a silent “k” at the beginning of words like “know” and “knight”? And which other languages also have interesting historical artefacts in their spelling systems? Spelling systems are kind of like homes -- the longer you’ve lived i...
2019-06-20 23:10:34 +0000 UTC View Post
When you're giving directions, do you tell someone to turn left, turn north, turn towards the sea? Different languages favour different strategies, and sometimes even people who speak the same language use directional words differently depending on their city or local geography, especially in areas with big landmarks like mountains and islands. In this bonus episode, recorded at our liveshow in...
2019-06-06 23:55:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Sometimes, you know something for sure. You were there. You witnessed it. And you want to make sure that anyone who hears about it from you knows that you’re a direct source. Other times, you weren’t there, but you still have news. Maybe you found it out from someone else, or you pieced together a couple pieces of indirect evidence. In that case, you don’t wa...
2019-05-16 23:12:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Wouldn't it be cool if we could teach animals to have conversations with humans? Well, alright, that's a bit ambitious -- what if we just teach animals to understand us? Okay, perhaps that's too much as well -- what about just trying to understand what animals are saying to each other? Attempts to study communication between animals and humans have had decidedly mixed results, but the efforts a...
2019-05-03 00:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post
A new round of Lingthusiasm merch is here! A new round of nerdy scarves and children's clothes, plus expanding all the scarf designs to mugs and notebooks!
Esoteric symbols on scarves, mugs, and notebooks!
Have you ever browsed the "Insert Symbol" menu just to explore all ...
2019-05-03 00:13:33 +0000 UTC View Post
When a language is shifting from being spoken by a whole community to being spoken only by older people, it’s crucial to get the kids engaged with the language again. But kids don’t always appreciate the interests of their elders, especially when global popular culture seems more immediately exciting. One idea? Make stories from pop culture, featuring character...
2019-04-19 00:22:08 +0000 UTC View Post
People on the radio have to say a lot of names of people and places which they might not be familiar with -- how do they know how to pronounce them all correctly?
It's actually someone's job to make a database of all these pronunciations, and to keep it updated as new people and places are making the news. In this bonus episode, recorded at our liveshow in Sydney, we get enthusiasti...
2019-04-04 22:18:52 +0000 UTC View Post
When you describe to someone a ball bouncing down a hill, one of the easiest ways to make it really clear just how much the ball bounced would be to gesture the way that it made its way downwards. You might even do the gesture even if you’re talking to the other person on the telephone and they can’t see you. No matter what language you speak, you’re likely to gesture, but that doesn’t ...
2019-03-21 22:20:33 +0000 UTC View Post
When you talk to someone who speaks a different version of English than you do, do you keep talking the way you do otherwise or do you find yourself slightly edging towards the way they speak? What about if you travel and you're surrounded by people with another accent or dialect?
This episode features a special behind the scenes chat with a member of the Lingthusiasm team, our audi...
2019-03-07 22:31:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Some sentences have a lot of words all relating to each other, while other sentences only have a few. The verb is the thing that makes the biggest difference: it’s what makes “I gave you the book” sound fine but “I rained you the book” sound weird. Or on the flip side, “it’s raining” is a perfectly reasonable description of a general raining event, but “it’s giving” doesn...
2019-02-22 02:31:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Have you ever wondered where emoji come from? Why does ending a text with a period make people think you’re mad at them? Why doesn’t “lol” mean “laughing out loud” anymore?
This Lingthusiasm bonus episode is a live recording from the Melbourne liveshow! Your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about the ways in which the internet is breathing new ...
2019-02-08 02:54:53 +0000 UTC View Post
The Rift Valley area of central and northern Tanzania is the only area where languages from all four African language families are found (Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, and Khoisan). Languages in this area have been in contact with each other for a long time, especially in the minds of bi- and multilingual speakers, so it’s a really interesting place to learn more about why and how languages influ...
2019-01-18 02:08:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a riddle:
Everyone has one, but I use yours more than I use my own.
What is it?
A name!
Naming a brand-new tiny human is a big linguistic task. They might carry that name for the rest of their life -- or at least for a number of formative years, if they decide to change it when they're older. But a baby can't tell you anything about what kin...
2019-01-03 12:40:36 +0000 UTC View Post
There are certain things that human societies, and therefore languages, have in common. We have the same basic inventory of body parts, which affect both the kinds of movements we can make to produce words and the names we have for our meat-selves. We’re all living on a watery ball of rock and fire, orbiting a large ball of gas. And we all arrived on this planet by means of other humans, and ...
2018-12-20 20:18:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Thank you for sending in all your great questions for this special bonus Q&A episode!
We answer your questions about linguistics games, very old words, using video to do linguistic research, and what would happen if your ears were a different shape. We also give you a peak behind the scenes, answering questions about how the liveshows went (you'll be able to listen to the record...
2018-12-07 00:14:03 +0000 UTC View Post