120: How (not) to kill a language - Interview with Sophia Smith Galer
Narratives about smaller languages often focus on the death and endangerment sides of the story. There's generally less on the social and political reasons why some languages are favoured at the expen...
18 Sep 40min
119: Irregularity is all over the place
Talk, talked. Walk, walked. Go...went? In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the many ways that languages are irregular in their patterns! We talk ab...
21 Aug 45min
118: Using tech to chat with bonobos, dogs, and whales
Can we teach dogs to express their needs better by pressing buttons? What about the studies trying to teach bonobos and other primates to communicate through buttons or signs? What have we learned abo...
17 Juli 45min
117: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking - Interview with Julie Sedivy
Sometimes, a phrase seems to leap off the page and lodge into your mind, crisp and shining like a precious jewel. Other times, you're reading something and it just won't stick, your eyes wandering awa...
19 Juni 49min
116: Cross-cultural communication (in space!)
Sometimes, you're talking with someone and you just seem to click. Other times, you just can't seem to get comfortable: they're standing too close or too far away for comfort, making too much or too l...
22 Maj 31min
115: The long shadow of Daisy Bates with This Guy Sucked
What do you do when the only records that remain of a language were made by someone who had absolutely horrendous views of the people who spoke it? In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthu...
17 Apr 1h
114: Begonia, average coral, and sea pink - Defining colour terms with Kory Stamper
begonia: a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see ‘coral’ 3B), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet William, called also ‘gaiety’. In this episode, you...
20 Mars 54min
