Episodes by topic
Lingthusiasm episodes assume no prior knowledge of linguistics and are designed to be listenable in any order. Here’s a list of episodes by topic (you can also listen from oldest to newest or from newest to oldest).
Starter Pack:
- When nothing means something
- Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
- Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou (in ASL and English)
- How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
- The grammar of singular they - Interview with Kirby Conrod
- What if linguistics? Absurd hypothetical questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd
- A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics
Phonetics
- All the sounds in all the languages - The International Phonetic Alphabet
- Vowel Gymnastics
- What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
- When nothing means something (glottal stops)
- Schwa, the most versatile vowel in the English language
- Climbing the sonority mountain from A to P
- Writing is a technology
- R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
- A Fun Filled Fricative Field Trip
- Making speech visible with spectrograms
- Who questions the questions?
- Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation!
- What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are
Phonology
- Sounds you can’t hear - Babies, accents, and phonemes
- What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday
- Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
- Putting sounds into syllables is like putting toppings on a burger
- Schwa, the most versatile vowel in the English language
- Tracing languages back before recorded history
- Climbing the sonority mountain from A to P
- R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
- A Fun Filled Fricative Field Trip
- Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages
Morphology
- Learning parts of words - Morphemes and the wug test
- When nothing means something (null morphemes)
- Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more
- This time it gets tense - The grammar of time
- The happy fun big adjective episode
- How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
- That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
- Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages
- What we can, must, and should say about modals
- The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries
- Ergativity delights us
- If I were an irrealis episode
- OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻
Syntax
- The bridge between words and sentences - Constituency
- Getting into, up for, and down with prepositions
- This, that and the other thing - determiners
- When nothing means something (wanna contraction/traces)
- The verb is the coat rack that the rest of the sentence hangs on
- You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality
- Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more
- This time it gets tense - The grammar of time
- The grammar of singular they - Interview with Kirby Conrod
- The happy fun big adjective episode
- How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
- Not NOT a negation episode
- Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masa
- That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
- Knowledge is power, copulas are fun
- Word order, we love
- What we can, must, and should say about modals
- Who questions the questions?
- Ergativity delights us
- If I were an irrealis episode
- OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻
Semantics
- Colour words around the world and inside your brain
- Talking and thinking about time
- Translating the untranslatable
- Sentences with baggage - Presuppositions
- What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
- You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality
- Smell words, both real and invented
- Tracing languages back before recorded history
- Not NOT a negation episode
- Cool things about scales and implicature
- Word order, we love
- The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries
- If I were an irrealis episode
- Welcome back aboard the metaphor train!
- Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!
Pragmatics
- Layers of meaning - Cooperation, humour, and Gricean Maxims
- When nothing means something (turntaking)
- Why do we gesture when we talk?
- Emoji are Gesture Because Internet
- How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
- Making machines learn language - Interview with Janelle Shane
- Hey, no problem, bye! The social dance of phatics
- Small talk, big deal
- Not NOT a negation episode
- Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind
- Cool things about scales and implicature
- Who questions the questions?
- Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge
- Word Magic
- A politeness episode, if you please
Language and society
- Arrival of the linguists: Review of the alien linguistics film
- Kids these days aren’t ruining language
- What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday
- Speaking Canadian and Australian English in a British-American binary
- Words for family relationships: Kinship terms
- Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori - Interview with Ake Nicholas
- You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality
- Emoji are Gesture Because Internet
- Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou
- Smell words, both real and invented
- How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
- Making machines learn language - Interview with Janelle Shane
- Tracing languages back before recorded history
- Who you are in high school, linguistically speaking - Interview with Shivonne Gates
- Small talk, big deal
- R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
- Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masakhane
- Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind
- Corpus Linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta
- What does it mean for a language to be official
- The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory
- Where language names come from and why they change
- Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
- Connecting with oral culture
- What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are
Child language acquisition
- Sound you can’t hear - Babies, accents, and phonemes
- Learning parts of words - Morphemes and the wug test
- Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou
- How to rebalance a lopsided conversation
- What makes a language “easy”? It’s a hard question
- Listen to the imperatives episode!
- How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting
- How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro
- Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
- Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!
General descriptivism
- Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace
- Kids these days aren’t ruining language
- Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz
- How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages
- Why do we gesture when we talk?
- Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori - Interview with Ake Nicholas
- Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change
- Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou
- Small talk, big deal
- Writing is a technology
- How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
- Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind
- What does it mean for a language to be official
- Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences
Words
- Inside the Word of the Year vote
- Colour words around the world and inside your brain
- People who make dictionaries
- Translating the Untranslatable
- Every word is a real word
- You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality
- Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change
- Smell words, both real and invented
- Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more
- Tracing languages back before recorded history
- The happy fun big adjective episode
- Listen to the imperatives episode!
- That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
- Where to get your English etymologies
- Knowledge is power, copulas are fun
- Word order, we love
- Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages
- Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko
- Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences
- Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!
Parts of speech
- Pronouns. Little words, big jobs
- Getting into, up for, and down with prepositions
- This, that and the other thing - determiners
- The verb is the coat rack that the rest of the sentence hangs on
- The happy fun big adjective episode
- Listen to the imperatives episode!
- That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
- Knowledge is power, copulas are fun
- What we can, must, and should say about modals
- The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries
Language learning
- Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace
- Language learning linguistically
- Translating the Untranslatable
- Speaking Canadian and Australian English in a British-American binary
- Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori - Interview with Ake Nicholas
- What makes a language “easy”? It’s a hard question
- What does it mean for a language to be official
- Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko
- How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro
- Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
Historical linguistics
- Colour words around the world and inside your brain
- People who make dictionaries: Review of WORD BY WORD by Kory Stamper
- Why spelling is hard - but also hard to change
- Schwa, the most versatile vowel in the English language
- Tracing languages back before recorded history
- How translators approach a text
- Writing is a technology
- Where to get your English etymologies
- Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages
- The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory
- Where language names come from and why they change
- No such thing as the oldest language
- Connecting with oral culture
- The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf
Language and technology
- Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz
- Making machines learn language - Interview with Janelle Shane
- Writing is a technology
- Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masakhane
- Corpus Linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta
- Making speech visible with spectrograms
- Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko
- Connecting with oral culture
- Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender
Books
- People who make dictionaries: Review of WORD BY WORD by Kory Stamper (WORD BY WORD on Goodreads, Amazon, and Bookshop)
- Emoji are Gesture Because Internet (Because Internet on Goodreads, Amazon, and Bookshop)
- Smell words, both real and invented (Shadowscent on Goodreads, Amazon, and Bookshop)
- How translators approach a text (Beowulf: A New Translation on Goodreads, Amazon, and Bookshop)
- Word Magic (Babel by R.F. Kuang on Bookshop and Amazon, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell on Bookshop and Amazon, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik on Bookshop and Amazon)
- Connecting with oral culture (The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang on Goodreads, Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong)
- The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf (Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany on Goodreads, Bookshop and Amazon)
Mythbusting
- Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace
- Kids these days aren’t ruining language
- Learning languages linguistically
- Translating the untranslatable
- Every word is a real word
- Why spelling is hard - but also hard to change
- What makes a language “easy”? It’s a hard question
- How translators approach a text
- Small talk, big deal
- Writing is a technology
- How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
- Where to get your English etymologies
- What it means for a language to be an official language
- The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory
- No such thing as the oldest language
- The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf
Gesture
Interviews
- What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday
- What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
- Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz
- How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages
- Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori - Interview with Ake Nicholas
- Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou
- Making machines learn language - Interview with Janelle Shane
- The grammar of singular they - Interview with Kirby Conrod
- Who you are in high school, linguistically speaking - Interview with Shivonne Gates
- Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masakhane
- Corpus Linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta
- Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko
- What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd
- How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting
- Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge
- How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro
- Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
- Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender
Video episodes:
About Lingthusiasm
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Weird and deep conversations about the hidden language patterns that you didn't realize you were already making.
New episodes (free!) the third Thursday of the month.
