First words and last words get a lot of attention. But how did words get to have such a place of prominence? What would we…
Breaking news: The president of the United States intends to sign an executive order designating English the official language of the USA. Is this a…
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It’s our Words of the Year episode, where we do a vibe check on all the words and name one of them our Because Language…
What’s in the linguistic news? Diego knows. He’s been tracking down stories and words for us all year long, and now he’s curated an entire show for us. It’s the…
Minority languages are under threat everywhere, but Tibet represents a particularly difficult challenge. The Tibetan language family is under pressure from (no surprise) Mandarin, even…
Language is a lot like love. You can enjoyably lose yourself in both. They can both be dangerous. And they both entail a responsibility to…
For our 500th episode, we got together with our great listeners for their words, stories, and inspiration. It’s a look back at the show, a…
Can you hear them? Only if you’re meant to. Political dogwhistles exploit lack of knowledge in one group to send a coded message to another…
Noam Chomsky is one of the world’s foremost thinkers, and his impact on linguistics is incalculable. Yet many people are only familiar with his political…