All episodes

New York City is home to a lot of languages! Sometimes a sizeable language community can live on just a…

Language authorities. Right-wing politicians. White supremacists and feminists. What do they have in common? They're all working together to fight…

Dr Kelly Wright is helping us understand the link between public health and language maintenance. And she's helping us with…

In honour of Grammar Day (4 March), we are joined live by special guest Ellen Jovin, who regularly dispenses grammar…

What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language. New research from Dr…

We're climbing back into the linguistic time machine and taking a look at language in the long view. We'll find…

We're talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He's here to tell us what…

The public has voted, and a winner has been decided! We're looking all the words chosen by the various dictionary…

What was language like a year ago? Ten years ago? A hundred? What about before that? We're climbing into the…

What is a woman? Or a man? Or a chair, or a sandwich? Or anything, really? "Gender critical" people are…

We've got mail, and linguistic MVP Dr Nicole Holliday is here to help us sort some things out around here.…

Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army…

What's happening with signed language in Argentina? How are terms for gender changing in the Spanish language? And are Zoomers…

Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us…

Our patrons are joining us live to give us their news, words, and stories. That's right, it's a Potluck episode!…

Women's bodies, women's occupations, women's experiences. So often in history, the discourse about women has been by men, about women.…

Listeners have once again sent us some great questions, and we have answers! Why do we TALK SHIT and not…

We're hosing down the hype surrounding AI, and frankly, we're going to need a bigger hose. Large language models like…

For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minorities…

How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place?…

Why does everyone say OOO! when they see someone fall down? Why do we say YUM when we feed a…

How can you tell if a news story is intended to deceive? In one well-known case of journalistic deception, there…

We're going deep into our Mailbag, and we're going to answer all your questions. Why do we say "here you…

When language was innovated, what happened next? How did it change our abilities — and our responsibilities — to each…

Here's an entire show, curated by one of our most prolific contributors — newly minted speechie PharaohKatt! She's got news.…

For this special live LingFest23 episode, we'll again be voting on tricky language issues, and our votes will be binding…

We all have freedom of expression, but what are its limits — social and legal? And how have governments tried…

The American Dialect Society Word of the Year has been chosen — and it's a wonderful and terrible pick! Depending on…

In what was meant to be a casual chat, cognitive scientist Dr Mark Ellison answers galaxy-brain-level questions about how language…

We're counting down our Words of the Year, as voted by you! We're joined by our friends and patrons, and…

ChatGPT has just landed. It can generate text that seems fluid, plausible, and (surprisingly) not total nonsense. It's got a…

Many expressions we use come from the nautical domain. But are they nautical? Are they really? We’ve got Chase Dalton…

A chat with Dr Kelly Wright, who’s been working on… well, really a lot. Kelly is at the juncture of…

Just two words, but they do so much. But what exactly? Here to answer that question is Dr Isabelle Burke,…

Yes, linguistics is all through the world of sci-fi, but science fiction has had a surprising impact on linguistic research.…

It's Ben, Hedvig, and Daniel all together in the same place for the first time. We're talking about the state…

Language isn’t just for communication — it’s fun. For over a hundred years, crosswords have served as entertainment, and even…

In which we get together for a chat, talk about stuff we like, and — oh, yeah — answers a few…

Today, we communicate. But once, we didn’t. What had to happen in our brains to make communication possible? And why…

Our friends, listeners, and patrons give us so many great stories, news, and words, so for this live episode, we're…

Our listeners and patrons send in so many great ideas, stories, and words. For this episode, listener and prolific contributor…

Everyone's favourite tabletop grammarian is back! It's Ellen Jovin, proprietor of the Grammar Table. She dispenses grammar advice around New…

It's crude. It's rude. And it's a lot of fun. Slang has been with us for as long as people…

Language titan Tiger Webb is helping us with our voluminous Mailbag. Hedvig is giving her annual Eurovision language roundup. And…

How is language like a game of charades? According to a new book, quite a lot. Charades players and language…

We had the pleasure of an interview with two up-and-coming linguists, wanting to find out more about the show and…

Linguistics is what we all love, but how do we make it pay? Turns out there are more ways than…

Lingcomm legend Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) joins us to answer all the questions in our Mailbag! And we have to…

Anacostia is a rapidly gentrifying suburb in Washington DC, and as Anacostia changes, so does the language. How do the…

Every Linguistics 101 student knows about HP Grice and his famous Maxims. They state that dialogue is usually cooperative —…

Can dictionaries create a more fair world? One language observer sees that dictionaries, far from being a neutral chronicle of…

The Words of the Year are out! And we're talking about 'em. We're answering all the questions in our voluminous…

Our listeners have voted, and here are all the words! Which were our top Words of the Week? Which were…

Our friends and listeners bring us lots of great stories, questions, and words. So for this episode, we've invited them…

The sciences are facing a replicability crisis. Some landmark studies were once considered settled, but then failed when they were…

Here to help us answer our voluminous Mailbag is the tireless Dr Caitlin Green, Vice Cancellor of Caitlin University. Among…

Dialect is a role-playing game about language and how it dies. Over the course of a game, players form an…

You probably communicate with your friends using media references all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But…

This is the second of a two-parter on generativism, the linguistic school of thought originated by Noam Chomsky. This time,…

We're doing a deep dive into generativism, the linguistic school of thought championed by Noam Chomsky. It's had an enormous…

The Because Language team are talking through some of the most interesting research around, and you get to listen! Valuable…

Linguistics as a discipline throws up challenges to Indigenous linguists. At the same time, they're the ones called upon to…

OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistic Olympiad. It gets students together to compete and solve linguistic problems. It's also…

All it took was a tweet. Last week, linguists refocused their attention on a paper about humidity and tone. Was…

What we call sometimes Chinese is really a gigantic family of languages. They’re somewhat divided in mutual intelligibility, and somewhat…

Words of the Week are coming out of the woodwork, and who better to work through them with us than…

Our Mailbag is once again full of questions, and podcasting luminary Helen Zaltzman is here to help us answer them!…

Language helps us build and maintain social relationships. Cults — however we define them — exploit this function and subvert…

We're taking over Pint of Science (or are they taking over us?) for this episode! Three researchers are presenting their…

Are fish wet? What is bi-weekly? And which Monday is next Monday? We’re solving some of the thorniest problems in…

It joins, it divides. It's disappearing in some places, but it's stronger than ever in others. For this episode, we're…

Who listens to the show more closely than anyone (except possibly Daniel)? It's Maya Klein, who transcribes every word we…

For many students, university opens up new frontiers of learning — and new ways to be marginalised for their language use.…

We're tackling these Mailbag questions with the help of the Layman's Linguist! Where do they say CHUBE instead of TUBE?…

What's a corpsicle? How old is the word hyperspace? Who was the first writer to use the term warp drive?…

There's so much news and research coming out, we can hardly address it all! But we're giving it a try…

Kamala Harris is the first woman — and woman of colour — to be Vice President of the United States.…

More great questions from our Mailbag! How did we get from SUSS (suspect) to SUSS OUT (find out)? Is the…

There's a new show on Netflix, and it's The History of Swearing, featuring Nicolas Cage. Backing him up is a…

On this momentous episode, we look back on all the words that made our year. Like, all of them. Including…

Our Mailbag is at capacity! Time to get to these questions. We have pronouns and proverbs. So why don't we…

If you love language, and you also love role-playing games with a sci-fi flair, then you're going to want to…

Schools are banning words and policing language. It may be a well-meaning attempt to encourage good language habits, but it…

The definition of white supremacy: is it expanding, or are we just getting better at recognising it and its reach?…

The questions keep coming! Let's answer them. Why is "Live Laugh Love" in that order? Why do we talk about…

Aboriginal English has been around a long while, but linguists have not taken the opportunity to really listen to the…

These cute critters, once part of a pioneering study in child language acquisition, have become an unofficial mascot of linguistics.…

OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad, where Australian high school students compete with others around the world by…

Language and culture are intertwined, and a new research project discovers that the meanings of words diverge as culture does.…

Our ever-popular Mailbag is bursting with questions, so let's get to them! How do you communicate expressively with a mask…

Linguistics as a discipline has some work to do when it comes to examining and eliminating the legacy of colonialism.…

An open letter to the LSA has ignited a furious debate among linguists and the wider public about who represents…

We've heard a lot about the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. But then we've also seen a lot of the supposed…

How does conversation work? Why are videoconference calls so awkward and terrible? Why can we say goodbye multiple times, but…

Time to get to this Mailbag! Why are flip-flops called 'thongs'? When people write the date as '7 April' or…

For our first episode as Because Language, we're assisted by an all-star cast of our linguistic friends, all here to…