Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Here’s a completely normal and unremarkable sentence. Let’s imagine we have two different coloured pens, and we’re going to circle the words in red and the affixes, that’s prefixes and suffixes, in blue. “Later today, I’ll know if I hafta get some prizes for Helen of Troy’s competition, or if it isn’t necessary.” Some of these are pretty straightforward. “Some”? Word. The -s on “prizes”? Affix. But some of them, “I’ll”, “hafta”, “Helen of Troy’s”, “isn’t”....hmmm. In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about a small bit of language that’s sort of a halfway point between a standalone word and a fully glommed-on affix: the clitic! We talk about why sentences like “That’s the kind of linguist I’m” feel so strange and how on the one hand clitics are a sign of increased efficiency in terms of saying more common words more quickly, but on the other hand they kind of add complication because there are some contexts where the full forms of the words would be fine and yet the clitic doesn’t work, giving you one more thing to keep track of. We also talk about clitics and reduced forms of words in Yolmo, Old English, and Dutch, and how clitic pronouns might be evolving into affixes in French and Spanish. Announcements: We’re excited to announce a special offer that we’re running on Patreon that brings you fun things in the mail! Join the Ling-phabet tier or higher by November 3, 2021 (anywhere on earth) and get a sticker pack of FOUR stickers: - Two round “Schwa never stressed” stickers (one floral, one geometric) - One classic square Lingthusiasm logo sticker - One BECAUSE INTERNET bookplate sticker signed by Gretchen, for you to stick inside your copy or anywhere else you like Plus, if we reach a total of 1400 patrons at any level before November 3, then the sticker pack will also include: - Two mini Lingthusiasm green cutout stickers, one of which is called “bouba” and the other “kiki” — which is which? That’s an experiment you get to run on your friends when you stick them on your phone case, water bottle, laptop, etc. This special offer is part of the Ling-phabet tier, which also has the ordinary perk of letting patrons sponsor an IPA symbol or other special character and be recognized on the Lingthusiasm website on our “Supporter Wall of Fame” page. You can get your symbol through our ~*~super scientific~*~ Which IPA Character Are You Quiz, or just tell us what your favourite character or other Unicode symbol is. Then you get an image with your name and favourite symbol on it (see samples here!) recognizing you as a supporter, which you can share on social media/print off and use as a bookmark/gaze at in warm satisfaction/etc. Plus, after 3 months at this tier, you get its regular “Lingthusiast” sticker in the mail, so that could be a total of 5 (or 7) stickers and 2 joyous mail occasions for you! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm In this month’s bonus episode, we talk with Emily Gref, a linguist who’s been working at a new language museum called Planet Word since 2018, first on creating content for the museum and, now that it’s open, on analyzing how visitors interact with the exhibits. We talk about what’s in Planet Word (including a library room with secret passage!), Emily’s career journey from academia to publishing to the museum world, and Emily’s passionate defence of pigeons. Join us on Patreon to listen to this and 53 other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can discuss your favourite linguistically interesting fiction with other language nerds! For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/662535562508517376/lingthusiasm-episode-60-thats-the-kind-of

Let's say I show you and our friend Gavagai a box of chocolates, and then Gav leaves the room, and I show you that the box actually contains coloured pencils. (Big letdown, sorry.) When Gav comes back in the room a minute later, and we've closed the box again, what are they going to think is in the box? In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about Theory of Mind -- our ability to keep track of what other people are thinking, even when it's different from what we know ourselves. 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. Announcements: This month’s bonus episode is about some of the linguistically interesting fiction we've been reading lately! We talk about the challenges of communicating with sentient plants (from the plant's perspective) in Semiosis by Sue Burke, communicating with aliens by putting babies in pods (look, it was the 1980s) in Suzette Haden Elgin's classic Native Tongue, communicating with humans on a sailing ship using a sorta 19th century proto-internet in Courtney Milan's The Devil Comes Courting, and taking advantage of the difficulty of translation in communicating poetry across cultures in A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm Join us on Patreon to listen to this and 53 other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can discuss your favourite linguistically interesting fiction with other language nerds! https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For links to all the things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/659993200644308992/01-speaking-a-single-language-wont-bring-about

The hosts explore the concept of fricatives and discuss the complexities of the letter 'S'. They delve into sound changes in languages and the perception of sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet. They also talk about the transformative power of mindfulness and share personal connections to fricative sounds.

Jade Abbott and Bonaventure Dossou of Masakhane discuss their mission to strengthen language technology for African languages. They talk about the challenges of data availability, the importance of language and culture, and the need for collaborative research and co-authorship. They also touch on Unicode support, phone translators, and improving translation quality.

The hosts of this podcast discuss negation in language, exploring how different languages indicate absence or lack. They delve into the concept of double negation and negative concord in French and English, highlighting the stigmatization of double negation in English. They also discuss the use of multiple negative elements in sentences and explore the concept of positive anymore in English. The podcast concludes by exploring positive polarity items in relation to negation.

Explore the fascinating world of R and R-like sounds in linguistics. Learn about the variability and perception of the /r/ sound in different accents. Discover the presence of 'R' at the end of words and its connection to homophones and homographs. Dive into colored vowels in various languages and Mandarin's Erhoi phenomenon. Explore the variations of R-like sounds in different languages. Uncover the recurring motif of the letter 'R' in languages.

If you go to the linguistics section of a big library, you may find some shelves containing thick, dusty grammars of various languages. But grammars, like dictionaries, don’t just appear out of nowhere -- they’re made by people, and those people bring their own interests and priorities to the process. In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about the process of figuring out the structure of a language and writing it down -- making a kind of book called a descriptive grammar. We also talk about differences in grammar-writing traditions in the history of India, Europe, and China, and how the structures of Sanskrit, Latin, and Old Chinese influenced the kinds of things that their early grammarians noticed about language. Announcements: We’re doing a virtual live show! It’s on April 24, 2021 and you can get access to it by becoming a patron of Lingthusiasm at any level. The Lingthusiasm liveshow is part of LingFest, a fringe-festival-like programme of independently organized online linguistics events for the week of April 24 to May 2. See the LingFest website for details as more events trickle in. https://lingcomm.org/lingfest/ The week before LingFest is LingComm21, the International Conference on Linguistics Communication. LingComm21 is a small, highly interactive, virtual conference that brings together lingcommers from a variety of levels and backgrounds, including linguists communicating with public audiences and communicators with a “beat” related to language. Find out more about LingComm21. https://lingcomm.org/conference/ This month’s bonus episode is about reduplication! Have you eaten salad-salad, drunk milk-milk, or read a book-book lately? Or are you thinking something more along the lines of "salad, schmalad! milk, schmilk! books, schmooks!"? In either case, you're producing reduplication! We look at different forms and meanings of reduplication across various languages through the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures, why it's not called just "duplication", and delve into English reduplication via a classic among entertaining linguistics papers, the Salad-Salad Paper. Join us on Patreon to get access to this and 48 other bonus episodes - as well as the upcoming liveshow! https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm Here are the links mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/646033422056292352/lingthusiasm-episode-54-how-linguists-figure-out

In this episode, your hosts get enthusiastic about the range of things that imperatives do in various languages. They discuss why imperatives are often one of the first verb forms that children learn. They also explore the relationship between negating and imperatives and how imperatives can be polite or impolite. Additionally, they delve into the origins of imperatives and the influence of Latin grammar. Lastly, they discuss the complexity of the imperative mood in different languages.

There’s no known human society without language, whether spoken or signed or both, but writing is a different story. Writing is a technology that has only been invented from scratch a handful of times: in ancient Sumeria (where it may have spread to ancient Egypt or been invented separately there), in ancient China, and in ancient Mesoamerica. Far more often, the idea of writing spreads through contact between one culture and its neighbours, even though the shape of the written characters and what they stand for can vary a lot as it spreads. In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about writing systems, and how the structure and history of a language contribute to the massively multigenerational project of devising a writing system (a project which is still ongoing). We also talk about some of our favourite origin-of-writing system stories, including the invention of the Cherokee syllabary and Korean hangul. Announcements We’re just about to hit 100 Lingthusiasm episodes! If you’re wondering why this is only episode 52, that’s because the other half of them exist as bonus episodes on Patreon. It’s also been one year since we launched the Lingthusiasm Discord server, which has grown into a place where casual conversations about food and pets always have the potential to veer off into linguistics. There are always new people trickling into the Discord, so come by if you’re looking for a place to nerd out with fellow linguistics enthusiasts! https://lingthusiasm.com/discord This month’s bonus episode is outtake stories from Lingthusiasm interviews! We've interviewed lots of great linguists on Lingthusiasm, and sometimes there's a story or two that we just don't have space for in the main episode, so here's a bonus episode with our favourite outtakes! Think of it as a special bonus edition DVD of the past few years of Lingthusiasm with director's commentary and deleted scenes. Join us on Patreon to get access to this and 46 other bonus episodes! https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For links to everything mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/640950463320260608/lingthusiasm-episode-52-writing-is-a-technology

Discover the science behind small talk in this enthusiastic podcast episode. Learn about the art of media references, strategies for avoiding awkward questions, and the cultural differences in small talk. Explore the role of small talk at conferences and in navigating social interactions. Get insights into the challenges of small talk and strategies for navigating them. Dive into the functions of small talk as a starting point for deeper conversations and maintaining social connections.