30: Why do we gesture when we talk?
This episode is also available as a special video episode so you can see the gestures! Go to youtube.com/lingthusiasm or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dHtr7uLHs to watch it! When you describe to...
21 Mars 201933min
29: The verb is the coat rack that the rest of the sentence hangs on
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” sou...
22 Feb 201938min
28: How languages influence each other - Hannah Gibson interview on Swahili, Rangi & Bantu languages
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...
18 Jan 201935min
27: Words for family relationships: Kinship terms
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 ...
20 Dec 201834min
26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
A letter stands for a sound. Or at least, it’s supposed to. Most of the time. Unless it’s C or G, which each stand for two different sounds in a whole bunch of languages. C can be soft, as in circus o...
16 Nov 201834min
25: Every word is a real word
squishable, blobfish, aaarggghh, gubernatorial, apple lovers, ain’t, tronc, wug, toast, toast, toast, toast, toast. All of these are words that someone, somewhere has asserted aren’t real words – or ...
18 Okt 201837min
24: Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz
As English speakers, we take for granted that we have lots of resources available in our language, from children’s books to dictionaries to automated tools like Siri and Google Translate. But for the ...
20 Sep 201838min
23: When nothing means something
When we think about language, we generally think about things that are visible or audible: letters, sounds, signs, words, symbols, sentences. We don’t often think about the lack of anything. But littl...
16 Aug 201835min
