Where does punctuation come from?!
In this episode I trace the punctuation we use every day as far back as I can. ❓Is the question mark actually a word? ❗️Where did the exclamation mark come…
It’s not yee old it’s the old: the þ in old English
Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ) is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as modern transliterations of the Gothic alphabet, Middle…
No such thing as the oldest language
It's easy to find claims that certain languages are old or even the oldest, but which one is actually true? Fortunately, there's an easy (though unsatisfying) answer: none of them!…
Subtitle -A German-speaking outpost in the American Midwest
German used to be one of the most widely-spoken languages in the United States. A survey in 1900 listed 613 US-based German-language newspapers. Today, only a handful survive, and German…
Subtitle – Americans, Brits and the foreignness of English
American English and British English aren't different languages. But they're not the same either, even if they're getting closer. There are all those different words for things: diaper/nappy, faucet/tap and…
Lingthusiasm – Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns – Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about new speakers and multiple generations of language revitalization in the Basque country with Dr. Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez, who's an Assistant Professor…
Stunning Codex Documenting Aztec Culture Now Fully Digitized
The 16th-century “Florentine Codex” offers a Mexican Indigenous perspective that is often missing from historical accounts of the period.
Mmm by Michele Oberholtzer
Listen — one day, a woman and a man lay together. They pushed and pulled and pulsed against each other’s bodies under the early afternoon sun. In that moment, when…
creativity, the illusion of originality, and when is something really plagiarism
I happened to listen to these two podcast back to back and I think they are actually great companion episodes. They are about creativity, the illusion of originality, and when…