“blah, blah, blah…”
“Blah, blah, blah” and “yada, yada, yada” have had plenty written about them. But there’s a longtime cousin of these phrases that’s much less understood. We use it all the…
Easing into multilingualism
Mastering six languages sounds like a slog, right? But in some corners of Europe, it happens—maybe not effortlessly, but more easily than in, say, Ohio. Gaston Dorren grew up speaking…
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…
Jesus H. Christ
Where does the 'H' come from and what does it stand for?
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…
Allusionist 180. Project ENABLE
Sterling Martin was in grad school, studying C. elegans worms, when COVID19 hit and suddenly he found himself in lexicography, as part of a team creating a Navajo-English dictionary of…
Lingthusiasm: What it means for a language to be official
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about language policy and how organizations and nation-states make language decisions that affect people’s everyday lives. We also…