lingthusiasm: > Language is all around us. This sentence right here, is language! But between the raw experience of someone saying something and a linguistic analysis of what they’ve said, there are certain steps that make it easier for that analysis to happen, or to be understood or reproduced by others later. > > In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how language becomes linguistic data. We talk about making recordings of language, transcribing real-life or recorded language, annotating recordings or transcriptions, archiving all those materials for future generations, restoring archival materials from decaying formats, and presenting this information in useful ways when writing up an analysis. Along the way, we touch on playing 100+ year old songs from cracked wax cylinders, the multi-line glossing format used so readers can understand examples in a language they’re not already fluent in, analyzing spontaneous conversation using tapes from the Watergate Scandal, recognizing everyone who’s contributed (including your own intuitions!), and Lauren’s role on a big committee of linguists and archivists formalizing principles for data citation in linguistics. > > Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here. > > **Announcements:** > > If you wish there were more Lingthusiasm episodes to listen to or you just want to help us keep making this show, we have over a hundred bonus episodes available for you to listen to on Patreon. > > Not sure about committing to a monthly subscription? You can now sign up for a free trial and start listening to bonus episodes for free right away. > > 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, an excerpt from our interview with Adam Aleksic about tiktok and how different online platforms give rise to different kinds of communication styles. Second, a return to our interview with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez for a bit about Spanish internet slang, -och, and why “McCulloch” looks like a perfect name for an author of a book about internet linguistics. Finally, deleted scenes from our advice episode, in which we reveal some Lingthusiasm lore about pronouncing “Melbourne” and imitating each other’s accents and answer questions about linguistics degrees and switching languages with people.. > > 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:** > > * Leipzig Glossing Rules from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Department of Linguistics > * Kittens & Linguistic Diversity Facebook page > * Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT) > * Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) > * CABank English Jefferson Watergate Corpus > * Jefferson Transcription System – A guide to the symbols > * Wikipedia entry for ‘List of -gate scandals and controversies’ > * The Austin Principles > * T-Recs - ‘Tromsø recommendations for citation of research data in linguistics’ by H. Andreassen, A. Berez-Kroeker, L. Collister, P. Conzett, C. Cox, K. De Smedt, and B. McDonnell > * ’Berkeley Cylinders’ post on Old Phono > * 'Media Stability Ratings’ post on Museum of Obsolete Media blog > * 'The Tape Restorator’ post on Endangered Languages and Cultures > * DELAMAN Award > * Pāṇini Award from the Association for Linguistic Typology > * 'New publication: Situating Linguistics in the Social Science Data Movement. Chapter in the Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management’ post on Superlinguo > * 'Linguistic Data Interest Group: Five years of improving data citation practices in linguistics’ post on Superlinguo > * 'New Commentary Paper: Open research requires open mindedness: commentary on “Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology” by Becker and Guzmán Naranjo [open access]’ post on Superlinguo > * Lingthusiasm episode ’Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences’ > * Lingthusiasm episode ‘What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are’ > * 'Tiny Turtle Follows Cat On a Skateboard | Cuddle Buddies’ on Cuddle Buddies YouTube page > > > 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).

superlinguo: > # **2026 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences** > > We want to see more linguistics in the world! > > The 2026 LingComm Grants are $300 (USD) to support linguistics communication projects that bring pop linguistics to broader audiences in new and engaging ways. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen McCulloch, Lauren Gawne, and/or an experienced lingcommer who we have personally selected to be relevant to your project to ask your lingcomm process questions, and promotion of your project to our lingthusiastic audience. > > We have six $300 LingComm Grants on any topic related to linguistics and an additional $300 Kirby Conrod and Friends LGBTQ+ LingComm Grant. > > The initial grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. You can help fund the grants and other LingComm projects here. Additional grants in 2026 were funded thanks to Daniel Currie Hall, Sarah Kelen, Lukas Graf, Rob Monarch and other anonymous donors. > > ALT > > **Please apply and/or share with any up and coming lingcommers you know!** > > For more information, and to apply, visit the Grants page of the LingComm website. > > To stay in the loop on LingComm, we have a LingComm Google Groups mailing list. Every two years running the LingComm Grants we find out about so many cool lingcomm projects we wouldn’t otherwise have known about, so we’re excited to see what people come up with this year!

burntheedges: > ## **On Connor Storrie’s excellent Russian in HR (from a linguist)** > > Ok it’s time to put my Russian and linguistics (and Slavic linguistics) degrees to work and tell you why Connor Storrie’s Russian and accent work in this show is so freaking good. (Links added for those who want more info about stuff.) Hey other linguists — I’m playing fast and loose with notation here, ok, we’re not doing phonemes and IPA. > > **We’re going to go over overall mouth shape, palatalization, lack of aspiration, vowel reduction, and intonation with examples from Ilya’s dialogue!** I’m going to talk about this from the perspective of an English speaker learning Russian since that’s what Connor (and I) did. Here we go. > > **1. Overall mouth shape** > > Every language has what you could think of as its own neutral or resting mouth position (aka, basis of articulation). One way to think of this is what the “I’m thinking” noise is — in English it’s uhh, in Spanish it’s often ehh. In Russian it’s mmm or ehhh or ahhh. The other thing is that the mouth typically does not open as much vertically when speaking Russian as when speaking English, but rather wider (horizontally). > > Connor is doing a good job of maintaining a more Russian resting position (and I have a theory that this is one of the reasons his face looks so different as Ilya). > > * You can see Connor doing this when he says “ehh no” to Shane about whether this is his first time with a man in episode 1. > * Also when he’s yelling at Alexei during the funeral in episode 5, we get to see him head on speaking Russian for an extended time, and you can see he is opening his mouth wider but not taller. > > > > > > **2. Palatalization** > > Every consonant has a place of articulation in your mouth, aka a place where your tongue touches the inside of your mouth or is positioned so that the air flows or is stopped in such a way as to make the sound. Making sounds is all about changing how air flows through our vocal tracts (throat, mouth, nose). > > Keep reading I’m not watching Heated Rivalry (yet?) but if anything is going to get me interested in it it’s going to be linguistic analyses.

In 2025, Lauren Gawne and I reached our 100th episode of Lingthusiasm, our podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! It’s a special format featuring 100 fun things about linguistics, which makes it a great entry point to the show if you haven’t tried it yet or are looking for something to forward to people. We also celebrated our 100th bonus episode (does that make this year actually our… 2025 year in review

October, November, & December 2025: Plays, poems, and preserves

lingthusiasm: > This year, we put out 12 episodes of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! > > Lingthusiasm episodes assume no prior knowledge, only enthusiasm! They can be listened to in any order, so if you see a title that entices you, jump on in: > > 1. Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!! (transcript) > 2. The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate (transcript) > 3. On the nose - How the nose shapes language (transcript) > 4. Highs and lows of tone in Babanki - Interview with Pius Akumbu (transcript) > 5. Urban Multilingualism (transcript) > 6. Is a hotdog a sandwich? The problem with definitions (transcript) > 7. Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd (transcript) > 8. Reading and language play in Sámi - Interview with Hanna-Máret Outakoski (transcript) > 9. A hand-y guide to gesture (transcript) > 10. The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf (transcript) > 11. Micro to macro - The levels of language (transcript) > 12. A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics (transcript) > > > We also put out 12 bonus episodes for patrons (transcripts are linked to from each episode’s page): > > 1. The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript - Interview with Claire Bowern > 2. World Linguistics Day > 3. What’s in a nym? Synonyms, antonyms, and so many more > 4. ¡Pos ya está! Translating Because Internet into Spanish with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez > 5. Reading linguistic landscapes on street signs > 6. Why sci-fi gestures live long and prosper - Crossover with Imaginary Worlds > 7. Advice #2 - Fun linguistic experiments, linguistic etiquette, and language learning scenarios > 8. The linguistics of kissing 😘 > 9. Linguist Celebrities > 10. Rock, paper, scissors, Gesture book, and a secret project - Survey results and general updates > 11. What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking > 12. Crochet vocal tract, grammar is a team sport, gifs, and soy sauce - Deleted scenes from Jacq Jones, Emily M. Bender, and Tom Scott team interviews > > > Plus, we put out a very special bonus bonus, in honour of our 100th bonus episode: an updated version of our very first bonus episode about swearing, now with extra sweary commentary and unlocked to anyone who follows us for free on Patreon. > > Thanks for joining us this year! > > Stay Lingthusiastic!

lingthusiasm: > 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).

lingthusiasm: > # Merry marry Mary } Holidays Greeting Card and Mug > > Whether you say them the same or differently, hope you have a joyful festive season! > > Do you need your friends and loved ones to know just how much of a linguistics nerd you are when sending out holiday greeting cards? Send ‘em Lingthusiasm’s {Merry, marry, Mary} Holidays card to let them make jokes about the merry-marry-Mary merger AND the n400 brain wave produced in response to unexpected words. Two linguistics references for the price of one, brought to you by Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics. I designed these cards because I just wanted to send them to some linguist friends over the holidays, but then I realized that their first reply was probably going to be “these are awesome, can I send some to people too??” so now they’re in @lingthusiasm’s merch store.

allthingslinguistic: > allthingslinguistic: > >> # This is my Jam >> >> 1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar. >> >> ## Day 1 >> >> Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind. >> >> ## Day 2 >> >> Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way. >> >> ## Day 3 >> >> I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT. > > ## Day 4 > > Cerise and violette are both foods that double as colour terms, so today is Kory Stamper’s True Color, about the history of writing colour definitions in black and white dictionaries. This is my advance copy but it’s coming out next year and I highly recommend it! > > ## Day 5 > > Apple cinnamon caramel, with Babel by RF Kuang: an initial rush of sweetness, a lingering aftertaste that’s far more complex. A book about the tension of translation as powerful magic > > ## Day 6 > > Lavender and apricot are foods that underwent long and meandering journeys through the ancient world to get to us today, so I’m pairing them with The Odyssey (translation by Emily Wilson) > > ## Day 7 > > Coffee caramel spread paired with The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (whose geology-based swear word system I loved linguistically) for their extensive histories of systemic exploitation > > ## Day 8 > > Lemon verbena white nectarine and peach with The Language Lover’s Puzzle book by Alex Bellos. This wordlist feels like the intro to a word problem, and this book contains language puzzles in profusion, plus solutions if you get stuck & context notes on the languages! > > ## Day 9 > > Vanilla caramel, a classic flavour, with the oldest pop linguistics book I own, a copy of Language Made Plain by Anthony Burgess (yes, the Clockwork Orange guy also wrote an intro to linguistics: the penciled flyleaf reminds me I bought it used for 50¢, in high school) > > ## Day 10 > > Blueberry, lychee, rose jam paired with To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. An Indigenous girl learns to work with a dragon in an alt history of American colonization (with really interesting linguistic elements) plus a jam featuring fruits from both places > > ## Day 11 > > Pineapple, rum, and vanilla gives me old and golden vibes that I’m pairing with Bea Wolf: Zach Weinersmith’s retelling of Beowulf as a kids fable in full Anglo Saxon meter. It’s glorious. > > ## Day 12 > > Raspberry redcurrant jelly with Babel: Around the world in twenty languages by Gaston Dorren. Redcurrant makes me think of Europe, so I’ve paired it with this Dutch writer’s window into the twenty most spoken languages of the world. > > ## Day 13 > > Did you know that a word for honey but not for bees has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, leading to theories that they traded for honey? Honey apricot with Proto: How one ancient language went global by Laura Spinney > > ## Day 14 > > When I visited Australia a few years ago it was mango season, so I’ve paired this ginger mango jam with Gesture: A Slim Guide by Lauren Gawne, who’s my cohost on @lingthusiasm and the reason I was there! > > ## Day 15 > > Orange guava lime jam with Language City by Ross Perlin. (I promise the real cover is more eye-catching than my advance copy!) Stories of the 700 languages actively spoken in New York City, by the same processes of human movement that let me eat guava today in snowy Montreal ## Day 16 Orange yuzu grapefruit marmelade paired with Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn for their shared Z. It taught me what an episolary novel and a pangram were as a young person and cemented my @lingthusiasm partnership with @superlinguo early on when we realized we were both fans of it ## Day 17 Cinnamon clementine pear, a bright yellow jam which I found particularly delicious, paired with a bright yellow Because Internet that I wrote myself! ## Day 18 Pink peppercorn and cherry with a spicy book of gestures that I apparently acquired in high school at some point and forgot about until rediscovering it in a box recently? ## Day 19 Mandarins, Italian paired with Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan ## Day 20 Blackcurrant peach with Sichuan peppercorns paired with True Biz by Sara Novic (my much-battered copy from taking it with me to ASL camp last summer), for the feeling of being simultaneously numb and on fire ## Day 21 Strawberry passion fruit paired with The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky, since I’ve eaten both fruits under many names: fraise, erdbeere, maracuyá, lilikoi… ## Day 22 Raspberry lychee jam paired with The Art of Language Invention by David J Peterson: the multiple pronunciations of lychee/litchi reminded me of the retconning necessary to make some of the original Game of Thrones names fit in with the subsequently fleshed-out Dothraki language ## Day 23 Strawberry rhubarb paired with The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: rhubarb is another word for nonsense, and the narrator of this linguistically intriguing book is barred from nonsense out of danger it’ll become true ## Day 24 Salted caramel paired with Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I remember when the salted caramel trend was suddenly everywhere, which reminds me of this magical system relying on living usage

allthingslinguistic: > “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Anglo-Saxon meter, by Philip Craig Chapman-Bell. Via Etymonline on Facebook, who says “An Internet classic; but I can no longer find it where I first found it (Cathy Ball’s Old English reference pages).” > > **Incipit gestis Rudolphi rangifer tarandus** > > Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor – > Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas! > Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele. > Ða hofberendas mid huscwordum hine gehefigodon; > Nolden þa geneatas Hrodulf næftig > To gomene hraniscum geador ætsomne. > Þa in Cristesmæsseæfne stormigum clommum, > Halga Claus þæt gemunde to him maðelode: > “Neahfreond nihteage nosubeorhtende! > Min hroden hrædwæn gelæd ðu, Hrodulf!” > Ða gelufodon hira laddeor þa lyftflogan – > Wæs glædnes and gliwdream; hornede sum gegieddode > “Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor, > Brad springð þin blæd: breme eart þu!” > > Rendered literally into modern English: > > **Here begins the deeds of Rudolph, Tundra-Wanderer** > > Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer – > That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils! > The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed. > The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words; > The comrades wouldn’t allow wretched Hrodulf > To join the reindeer games. > Then, on Christmas Eve bound in storms > Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him: > “Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one! > You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!” > Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer – > There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang > “Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer, > Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!”

lingthusiasm: > Bonus 106: The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript - Interview with Claire Bowern | Lingthusiasm > > # Bonus 106: The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript - Interview with Claire Bowern > > In the 1600s, an antique book is recorded in an alchemist’s library in Prague, containing intriguing but puzzling drawings, like plants with unnatural cuboid roots, as well as a strange writing system, with some familiar letters and some utterly unfamiliar. This book became known as the Voynich Manuscript, after a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912, and the meaning (or lack thereof) that lies on its 240 parchment pages is a puzzle that’s intrigued cryptographers, historians, linguists, and more for centuries. > > In this episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern, who’s a professor at Yale University, researcher of language documentation and historical linguistics, and creator of a class about the enduring enigma that is the Voynich Manuscript. 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. > > Listen to this episode about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon. Possibly the most popular bonus episode we’ve done yet, turns out people really like mysterious ancient manuscripts.

allthingslinguistic: > # This is my Jam > > 1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar. > > ## Day 1 > > Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind. > > ## Day 2 > > Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way. > > ## Day 3 > > I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT. ## Day 4 Cerise and violette are both foods that double as colour terms, so today is Kory Stamper’s True Color, about the history of writing colour definitions in black and white dictionaries. This is my advance copy but it’s coming out next year and I highly recommend it! ## Day 5 Apple cinnamon caramel, with Babel by RF Kuang: an initial rush of sweetness, a lingering aftertaste that’s far more complex. A book about the tension of translation as powerful magic ## Day 6 Lavender and apricot are foods that underwent long and meandering journeys through the ancient world to get to us today, so I’m pairing them with The Odyssey (translation by Emily Wilson) ## Day 7 Coffee caramel spread paired with The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (whose geology-based swear word system I loved linguistically) for their extensive histories of systemic exploitation ## Day 8 Lemon verbena white nectarine and peach with The Language Lover’s Puzzle book by Alex Bellos. This wordlist feels like the intro to a word problem, and this book contains language puzzles in profusion, plus solutions if you get stuck & context notes on the languages! ## Day 9 Vanilla caramel, a classic flavour, with the oldest pop linguistics book I own, a copy of Language Made Plain by Anthony Burgess (yes, the Clockwork Orange guy also wrote an intro to linguistics: the penciled flyleaf reminds me I bought it used for 50¢, in high school) ## Day 10 Blueberry, lychee, rose jam paired with To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. An Indigenous girl learns to work with a dragon in an alt history of American colonization (with really interesting linguistic elements) plus a jam featuring fruits from both places ## Day 11 Pineapple, rum, and vanilla gives me old and golden vibes that I’m pairing with Bea Wolf: Zach Weinersmith’s retelling of Beowulf as a kids fable in full Anglo Saxon meter. It’s glorious. ## Day 12 Raspberry redcurrant jelly with Babel: Around the world in twenty languages by Gaston Dorren. Redcurrant makes me think of Europe, so I’ve paired it with this Dutch writer’s window into the twenty most spoken languages of the world. ## Day 13 Did you know that a word for honey but not for bees has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, leading to theories that they traded for honey? Honey apricot with Proto: How one ancient language went global by Laura Spinney ## Day 14 When I visited Australia a few years ago it was mango season, so I’ve paired this ginger mango jam with Gesture: A Slim Guide by Lauren Gawne, who’s my cohost on @lingthusiasm and the reason I was there! ## Day 15 Orange guava lime jam with Language City by Ross Perlin. (I promise the real cover is more eye-catching than my advance copy!) Stories of the 700 languages actively spoken in New York City, by the same processes of human movement that let me eat guava today in snowy Montreal

This summer, I went to ASL camp! I spent a week at Bob Rumball Camp of the Deaf, in Parry Sound, Ontario, at their ASL Adult Immersion Summer Camp, voices off for 6 nights and 7 days! This was my first time doing any sort of language immersion camp in my various experiences learning languages, and I definitely see why people like them, I really felt liked I levelled up significantly in my signing… July, August, & September 2025: ASL Camp and Arroba Lengua

1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar. ## Day 1 Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind. ## Day 2 Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way. ## Day 3 I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT.

lingthusiasm: > Bonus 105: World Linguistics Day | Lingthusiasm > > # Bonus 105: World Linguistics Day > > There are many occasions for thinking about linguistics-related topics, from official UN designations like International Mother Language Day, International Day of Sign Languages, and International Decade of Indigenous Languages, to sillier days that have been memed into existence, like World Emoji Day and Talk Like A Pirate Day. > > In this bonus episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about celebratory days, years, decades, and more with some relationship to linguistics. We’ve also 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! > > Listen to this episode about celebratory days, years, decades, and more with some relationship to linguistics, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon. World Linguistics Day is in 2 days!

lingthusiasm: > 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). I don’t exactly know how it happened but this turned out to be one of our funniest episodes we’ve ever done. Science side of tumblr please explain to me why noses are just intrinsically funny.

lingthusiasm: > Bonus 103: ¡Pos ya está! Translating Because Internet into Spanish with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez | Lingthusiasm > > # Bonus 103: ¡Pos ya está! Translating Because Internet into Spanish with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez > > _Because Internet_ , our cohost’s book about internet language, now exists in four additional languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Spanish. But these translations are also very much acts of creation, of figuring out which things to translate literally, which to leave in English as it’s used globally, and which to translate figuratively so that the spirit of the original comes across more clearly – all questions that are especially acute when it comes to translating a book that is itself about language. > > In this bonus episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about the joys and challenges of translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of _Because Internet_ into Spanish. We talk about why _Because Internet_ was the toughest and also most entertaining book he’s ever translated (for some of the same reasons), from coming up with localized Spanish versions of vintage internet memes to making the silly names of pretend people in the example sentences just as silly in Spanish. We also talk about leaving breadcrumbs for future translators in the original text and the special challenge of translocalizing the title: _Arroba Lengua_ isn’t a literal translation of _Because Internet_ , but it fits similarly into Spanish internet slang. > > **Here are the links mentioned in the episode:** > > * Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez > * Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez on Bluesky > * Miguel’s own pop linguistics book in Spanish, ’La (neo)lógica de las lenguas’ > * You can get _Arroba Lengua_ , the Spanish translation of _Because Internet_ at Piodepagina, Casadellibro, and other places Spanish-language books are sold (note that the ebook edition may be more readily available if you’re outside Europe) > * You can also get English, simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean copies of Because Internet here > * Lingthusiasm episode ‘How translators approach a text’ > > > Listen to this episode about translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of Because Internet into Spanish, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon. I am so incredibly excited to share Miguel’s thoughtful and delightful approach to translating Because Internet! If you read this or any of the translations, I would be interested in your thoughts about how the translators approach the text.

lingthusiasm: > Linguistic research has its highs and lows: from staging a traditional wedding to learn about ceremonial words to having your efforts to found a village school disrupted by civil war. Linguistic research can also be _about_ highs and lows: in this case, looking at how high and low tones in Babanki words affect their meaning. > > In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about the highs and lows of fieldwork in Babanki with Dr. Pius Akumbu, who’s a linguist from Babanki, Cameroon, and a Director of Research in African Linguistics at CNRS in the LLACAN Lab (the Languages and Cultures of Africa Lab) in Paris, France. We talk about Professor Akumbu’s documentation work on a wide variety of topics from the relationship of Babanki to other Grassfields and Bantu languages, what happens when words have a mysterious extra tone that is only produced under the right circumstances (floating tones), to that time he staged a false wedding to document traditional wedding ceremonial language – and led to a real couple opting for a traditional-style wedding of their own. We also talk about the process of founding a school in his home village to ensure that children have access to primary education in their own language. > > Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here. > > **Announcements:** > > Lingthusiasm has more than twenty interview episodes, and you can find them all together on our Topics page, where we have a category for our interviews. We also have over 100 bonus episodes for patrons, with a few interviews there as well. > > In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the joys and challenges of translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of _Because Internet_ into Spanish! We talk about why _Because Internet_ was the toughest and also most entertaining book he’s ever translated (for some of the same reasons), from coming up with localized Spanish versions of vintage internet memes to making the silly names of pretend people in the example sentences just as silly in Spanish. We also talk about leaving breadcrumbs for future translators in the original text and the special challenge of translocalizing the title: _Arroba Lengua_ isn’t a literal translation of _Because Internet_ , but it fits similarly into Spanish internet slang. > > 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:** > > * Pius W. Akumbu on Google Scholar > * Pius W. Akumbu at LLACAN > * Wikipedia entry for ‘Babanki language’ > * **’ M**ultimedia Documentation of Babanki Ritual Speech’ by Pius Akumbu for Endangered Languages Archive > * 'Episode 24: Pius Akumbu on Insider Research in Babanki’ Field Notes podcast > * Lingthusiasm episode ’How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages’ > > > 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).

Back in 2017, when I was deep in the writing process for Because Internet, I was feeling stuck on the emoji chapter and Lauren Gawne, my cohost on the then-baby Lingthusiasm podcast (we were less than a year old!) offered to read the current draft. I’ll never forget her comment that led to me rewriting the whole chapter: “You realize this is all related to gesture, right?” Immediately, I wanted… April, May, & June 2025: Lauren writes a gesture book!

Title: Jan-Mar 2025: 100th Lingthusiasm episode In the first few months of 2025, we celebrated a podcast milestone: 100 episodes of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! To celebrate, my cohost Lauren Gawne and I did a special double-feature: our 100th episode had 100 “fun fact” reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics (including a few from former guests) and our… January, February, and March 2025: 100th Lingthusiasm episode

In 2024, I traveled to Europe to speak at several events, including the launch of the Spanish translation of Because Internet. I started studying American Sign Language through the Lethbridge Layton Mackay Rehabilitation Centre in Montreal — my first time in a language classroom since university and it’s been really fun! The 2024 lingcomm grants were awarded. And I collaborated with the Crash… 2024 Year in Review

lingthusiasm: > 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: > Bonus 102: Reading linguistic landscapes on street signs | Lingthusiasm > > # Bonus 102: Reading linguistic landscapes on street signs > > When we walk around a place where people live, we often see signs of how the people there are thinking about language. Literal signs, from official signage reflecting language policies to informal public notes that reflect who their writers are assuming or hoping will read them. The study of these public and commercial signs, and what they mean about how people are using language in a place, is a field known as linguistic landscapes. > > In this episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about linguistic landscapes and the inescapable linguist hobby of taking photos of linguistically interesting signage. 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, when the menu is in one language but the “help wanted” sign is in a different one, 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. > > Listen to this episode about linguistic landscapes, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon. it is a truth universally acknowledged that a linguist who spots a linguistically interesting street sign must take a photo of it

Language is mobile and liable to change … a very large number of words have two or more pronunciations current … giving life and variety to language … it is a free country, and a man may call a vase a vawse, a vahse, a vaze, or a vase, as he pleases. And why should he not? We do not all think alike, walk alike, dress alike, write alike, or dine alike; why should we not use our liberty in speech also, so long as the purpose of speech, to be intelligible, and its grace, are not interfered with? James Murray, aka the original guy behind the oxford english dictionary, being pretty damn tolerant for 1895