Superlinguo

For those who like and use language

55 notes

2026 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences

We want to see more linguistics in the world! 

The 2026 LingComm Grants are $300 (USD) to support linguistics communication projects that bring pop linguistics to broader audiences in new and engaging ways. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen McCulloch, Lauren Gawne, and/or an experienced lingcommer who we have personally selected to be relevant to your project to ask your lingcomm process questions, and promotion of your project to our lingthusiastic audience. 

We have six $300 LingComm Grants on any topic related to linguistics and an additional $300 Kirby Conrod and Friends LGBTQ+ LingComm Grant.

The initial grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. You can help fund the grants and other LingComm projects here. Additional grants in 2026 were funded thanks to Daniel Currie Hall, Sarah Kelen, Lukas Graf, Rob Monarch and other anonymous donors.

Working on a project bringing linguistics to broader audiences? Apply for a 2026 LingComm Grant! Due: April 30, 2026.ALT

Please apply and/or share with any up and coming lingcommers you know!

For more information, and to apply, visit the Grants page of the LingComm website.

To stay in the loop on LingComm, we have a LingComm Google Groups mailing list.

31 notes

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 112: When language become-s(3SG) linguistic example-s(PL)

Language is all around us. This sentence right here, is language! But between the raw experience of someone saying something and a linguistic analysis of what they’ve said, there are certain steps that make it easier for that analysis to happen, or to be understood or reproduced by others later.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how language becomes linguistic data. We talk about making recordings of language, transcribing real-life or recorded language, annotating recordings or transcriptions, archiving all those materials for future generations, restoring archival materials from decaying formats, and presenting this information in useful ways when writing up an analysis. Along the way, we touch on playing 100+ year old songs from cracked wax cylinders, the multi-line glossing format used so readers can understand examples in a language they’re not already fluent in, analyzing spontaneous conversation using tapes from the Watergate Scandal, recognizing everyone who’s contributed (including your own intuitions!), and Lauren’s role on a big committee of linguists and archivists formalizing principles for data citation in linguistics.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

If you wish there were more Lingthusiasm episodes to listen to or you just want to help us keep making this show, we have over a hundred bonus episodes available for you to listen to on Patreon.

Not sure about committing to a monthly subscription? You can now sign up for a free trial and start listening to bonus episodes for free right away.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn’t quite have space to share with you! First, an excerpt from our interview with Adam Aleksic about tiktok and how different online platforms give rise to different kinds of communication styles. Second, a return to our interview with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez for a bit about Spanish internet slang, -och, and why “McCulloch” looks like a perfect name for an author of a book about internet linguistics. Finally, deleted scenes from our advice episode, in which we reveal some Lingthusiasm lore about pronouncing “Melbourne” and imitating each other’s accents and answer questions about linguistics degrees and switching languages with people..

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

10 notes

Superlinguo 2025 in review

It has been a lovely and busy year. It has been so nice to see Gesture: A Slim guide out in the world. It was about four years from contract to publication, which isn’t long in the world of academic publishing, but it’s been long enough that sometimes it surprises me to see it on my shelf.

I was joined by three new colleagues, who have been wonderfully energetic and collaborative. I also joined the Higher Education Academy as a Senior Fellow, which has given me the opportunity to connect with other people doing interesting teaching work at La Trobe University.

And between the teaching and the research there was (thankfully) still time for podcasting and some blogging. A good year all around.

Lingthusiasm in 2025

Lingthusiasm turned 9! There were a dozen main episodes and an equal number of monthly bonus episodes for patrons.

We celebrated our 100th episode with 100 facts about linguistics, and then half a year later our 100th bonus, and also made our first bonus episode available for everyone to listen to. We also shared 101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics, and 10 of the most popular Lingthusiasm episodes. There are 13 bonus episodes for 2025, as we re-released our very first bonus episode (with new introduction) for all patrons, including free supporters.

We launched some merch with our refreshed jazzy logo, and some Merry/Marry/Mery Christmas cards.

Main episodes

Bonus episodes

Top Superlinguo posts in 2025

There were a few posts celebrating the publication of Gesture: A Slim Guide but also over a dozen other substantive posts. It’s good to know that even without putting pressure on myself the blog is ticking along as a broadly monthly concern.

Gesture: A Slim Guide posts

General posts

Academic articles in 2025

Alongside the publication of Gesture: A Slim guide, there were four academic publications this year, across lingcomm, gesture, Tibetic and linguistics data. Happily, all of these were published open access. It’s great to see funding models are shifting and I am able to more easily publish work that anyone can read.

The year ahead

I submitted an application for promotion in 2025, and will start 2026 as an Associate Professor. A promotion application is not a trivial thing to write (I tracked my time, it was at least 25 hours, and that’s even with documentation pretty organised already).

2026 is hopefully going to be a year of lots of curriculum planning and development. This kind of work is often not very visible, so I’m hoping to document some of it as we go. There are, as always, lots of research and lingcomm plans afoot too.

Browsing old Superlinguo content?

I have a welcome page on the blog that points you to aggregate posts, and series of posts I’ve done over the years, as well as themed collections of posts that have appeared on the blog in the last twelve years.

Previous years

44 notes

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 111: Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!!

Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!? Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!? Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that’s its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you’re not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews.

Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn’t created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn’t look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven’t succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we’ve actually succeeded in cracking it one day.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

Surprise!!

9 notes

Christmas words: Sugar plum

The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is my only interaction with sugar plums. I had no real idea until I wrote this post that it was a hard sugar candy rather than.. well a plum in sugar.

The etymology given in the Oxford English Dictionary is from plum, the fruit, but this isn’t a common enough use to have a specific sense.

image

Image: Sugar Plum via Wikipedia

Sugar plums are new to me but definitely not new, they’ve been a recorded treat for at least 600 years in English.

At Superlinguo, I celebrate the silly season with Christmasy words. The full list is here. If you’ve got a Christmas word you’re curious about, let me know!

155 notes

Christmas word etymologies: The full Superlinguo list

superlinguo:

Christmas is a time of year that invokes a yearning for tradition. It’s now a tradition that I rip open the words of the season, like a child unwrapping a new toy.

Here is a full list of posts from previous years in alphabetical order:

Here’s the list by year:

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

19 notes

Happy World Linguistics Day!

Happy World Linguistics Day!

World Linguistics Day is on the 26th of November in honour of de Saussure’s birthday. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate linguistics.

If you want more linguistics, here’s a list of 101 different ways to get more linguistics, whatever media format works for you: 

Lingthusiasm - 101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics
lingthusiasm: 101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics In honour of Lingthusiasm’s 100th episodiversary, we’ve compiled this li
Lingthusiasm

72 notes

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 110: The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate

Before there was English, or Latin, or Czech, or Hindi, there was a language that they all have in common, which we call Proto-Indo-European. Linguists have long been fascinated by the quest to get a glimpse into what Proto-Indo-European must have looked like through careful comparisons between languages we do have records for, and this very old topic is still undergoing new discoveries.

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the process of figuring out Proto-Indo-European with Dr. Danny Bate, public linguist, host of the podcast A Language I Love Is…, and author of the book Why Q Needs U. We talk about why figuring out the word order of a 5000-year-old language is harder than figuring out the sounds, and a great pop linguistics/history book we’ve both been reading that combines recent advances in linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence to reexamine where these ancient Proto-Indo-European folks lived: Proto by Laura Spinney. We also talk about Danny’s own recent book on the history of the alphabet, featuring fun facts about C, double letters, and izzard!

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about celebratory days, years, decades, and more with some relationship to linguistics! We recently learned that people in the UK have been celebrating National Linguistics Day on November 26th and many lingcommers are excited about the idea of taking those celebrations international: World Linguistics Day, anyone? What we learned putting this episode together is that celebratory days take off when groups of people decide to make them happen so…let’s see how many different locations around the world we can wish each other Happy World Linguistics Day from this year!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

10 notes

New Article: Natural disasters elicit spontaneous multimodal iconicity in onomatopoeia and gesture: Earthquake narratives from Nepal and New Zealand [Open Access]

When we started planning the special issue of the Australian Journal of Linguistics in honour of Barbara F. Kelly, I immediately knew that this was the work I wanted to submit to the collection. This is a project that I had been tinkering on with my collaborators for a while, but this was the perfect venue that got me to pull it together.

This project draws together two research interests that Barb and I shared: Tibeto-Burman languages and the use of gesture. It was also great to work on this with Kristine Hildebrandt, who was Barb’s close grad school friend, and Suzy Styles, who contributed an excellent illustrative figure as well as her expertise in cross-sensory representation.

Abstract

This paper examines onomatopoeia and gesture in the description of earthquakes, to better understand how people produce complex multimodal representations of experiences. We use narratives from New Zealand English speakers (2010/2011 earthquakes around Christchurch), and from Nubri and Syuba (Tibeto-Burman) speakers (2015 earthquakes in Nepal). We selected 16 narratives from each event. Between the two datasets there were distinct preferences regarding onomatopoeia; no English speakers used onomatopoeia, while seven participants across the Nepal narratives did, using distinct onomatopoeic tokens, which conformed to similar phonetic shapes. Speakers across all groups used gesture to iconically represent the earthquake, with similarities across groups regarding a preference for two hands and repetition of movement. New Zealand participants consistently used vertical gesture trajectory, while the Nepali participants used horizontal-trajectory gestures. We argue that this is likely a result of cultural context but also the interaction of housing types with the motion of an earthquake, and represents iconic information in the gestural channel that is not captured in the spoken channel. This paper illustrates the importance of considering the multimodal iconic representation of events in narrative to build an understanding of the sensory experience of an event that is shared in the retelling.

Citation

Gawne, Lauren, Kristine A. Hildebrandt, and Suzy Styles. (2025). ‘Natural disasters elicit spontaneous multimodal iconicity in onomatopoeia and gesture: Earthquake narratives from Nepal and New Zealand’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 45/3: 448–65. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2025.2506628

See also

94 notes

My collection of Academic Research/Admin tools

Over the years I’ve build myself a little collection of tools and resources to manage the weird and messy work of being an academic. I thought I’d compile them all here in case any of them are useful to you.

Academic Log

This Google Sheet template from Dr Bronwyn Eager lets you keep track of all the things you’ve done as an academic. I set it up after a very tedious promotion application and have found it invaluable. There’s a blog post about it as well.

Academic Time Tracker

This spreadsheet was developed by Brendan Keogh as a way to track where you spend your hours across the days/weeks/year as a teaching and research academic. I was already doing some gentle time tracking, this sheet has been very useful to help me reflect and think about where I’m spending my energy (and to try and rein in the overwork).

Zotero

Zotero is a great reference manager, and with the browser plug in that I’ve installed, I’ve never been more on top of keeping my references up to date. It’s also really great for collaborative projects, I have a whole stack of shared collections.

Trello

I have tried using Trello for general task management, but to be honest I’m usually happy with a spreadsheet, keep note or even a physical post it note. I’ve set up a trello board to keep track of where different articles are for publication, here’s a template of it.

Paper diary

I keep a digital calendar, but I just like writing my week out and planning tasks on paper, and it’s nice to have it all in one place. There are so many different diaries, I like one that’s very minimal so I can use it as I see fit. It’s not pretty, but it’s useful. I use an emma kate co. because it has very minimalist pages, but that’s just me.

Links to other resources I’ve found helpful:

Pomodoro method (Wikipedia): A good framework for approaching writing and other tasks in short focused sessions.

Seasonal organisation (Kirby Conrod): This article is framed around adhd, but I think it’s good for everyone to know that you should always be revisiting how you work.

Cornell method (Katherine Firth): get the most out of your note taking.

2 notes

New Article: For the love of people: Introduction to the special issue in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly [Open Access]

This article is the introduction to the special issue of the Australian Journal of Linguistics in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly. This article was co-authored with Celeste Rodríguez Louro and Katharine Parton, my two co-editors for the volume. Celeste and Katharine were also two of Barb’s earliest PhD students, and working together on this has been a lovely experience.

This article traces the trajectory of Barb’s career, weaving in the links to each of the contributions to the special issue. We also used this article to provide some reflections on our experience of Barb as a research supervisor, and how she combined intellectual rigour and a deep personal care in a way that has shaped us as researchers and as people.

Abstract

Barbara Frances Kelly, affectionately known as “Barb”, was a language scientist, a tireless advocate for her community and – most importantly – our PhD supervisor. Her sudden passing in late 2022 left her family, friends and colleagues deeply saddened. Yet, amid our grief, we were aware of the mark she had left in our lives. In this introductory paper, we trace Barb’s career in linguistics, linking her contributions to those of the scholars featured in this Special Issue in her honour. We also reflect on the lasting impact of her mentorship. Barb’s warmth, humanity and unwavering support – her deep love for people – were evident in every aspect of her doctoral supervision. From her arrival at The University of Melbourne in 2005 through to her senior years in academia, she guided us with courage and an unshakable belief in our potential. Barb’s supervision was a rare blend of intellectual rigour and genuine care. Her sharp mind and compassionate mentorship created a unique experience – one that shaped us as scholars and individuals. We argue that her approach exemplifies the foundations of successful doctoral supervision: a combination of scholarly excellence and deep human connection. This legacy lives on, inspiring future generations.

Citation

Rodríguez Louro, Celeste, Katharine Parton, and Lauren Gawne. (2025). ‘For the love of people: Introduction to the special issue in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 45/3: 259–74. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2025.2514173

See also

19 notes

Australian Journal of Linguistics special issue in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly

The latest double issue of the Australian Journal of Linguistics (45.3) is a special issue in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly. It has been my absolute pleasure to be an editor for this special issue, bringing together an amazing range of work that touches on the contributions and legacy of Barbara F. Kelly.

Thanks to my co-editors Katharine Parton and Celeste Rodriguez Louro. Thanks also to all of the contributors, who were the loveliest collection of authors one could hope to work with (unsurprising, given that one of Barb’s particular talents was collecting great people).

Almost all articles are Open Access, with the remainder available without paywall for the first six months.

I’ll be sharing more later about the two contributions in the collection I was an author on. I wanted to start by sharing the full list of the articles and contributors in the special issue.

Special Issue: In Memory of Barbara F. Kelly
Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 45(3)

For the love of people: Introduction to the special issue in honour of Barbara Frances Kelly
Celeste Rodríguez Louro, Katharine Parton & Lauren Gawne

Barbara F. Kelly and the study of children’s multimodal language socialization
Eve V. Clark & Alan Rumsey

Multimodal strategies for engaging young Arrernte and Warlpiri children in storytelling and play
Carmel O’Shannessy, Jennifer Green, Vanessa Davis, Jessie Bartlett, Alice Nelson, Ashleigh Jones & Denise Foster

Children’s introductions to story characters in Murrinhpatha, a traditional Australian language
Lucinda Davidson & Gillian Wigglesworth

An acquisition sketch of polysynthetic verbal morphology in Murrinhpatha
William Forshaw, Lucinda Davidson & Rachel Nordlinger

Children’s verbal inflection development in Pitjantjatjara: An acquisition sketch
Wanyima Wighton, Rebecca Defina & Barbara F. Kelly

A comparative study of child-directed language across five cultures based on data from the Acquisition Sketch Project
Evan Kidd, Birgit Hellwig, Rowena Garcia, Rebecca Defina, Lucinda Davidson & Shanley Allen

Say “I’m Uncle Lama” and sit with crossed legs: Socializing religious practice in Sherpa
Sara Ciesielski

Natural disasters elicit spontaneous multimodal iconicity in onomatopoeia and gesture: Earthquake narratives from Nepal and New Zealand
Lauren Gawne, Kristine A. Hildebrandt & Suzy Styles

Gestures for me and you: A corpus study of Matukar Panau referential gestures
Danielle Barth & Kira Davey

From both sides now: Revisiting Dalabon kintax
Nicholas Evans

Stance in [in]action: Being in the room where it happens
Katharine Parton & G. Edwards

Decolonizing the introductory linguistics curriculum
Celeste Rodríguez Louro, Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway, Ewan O’Brien, Katharina Froedrich & Luisa Miceli

93 notes

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 109: On the nose - How the nose shapes language

We often invoke the idea of language by showing the mouth or the hands. But the nose is important to both signed and spoken languages: it can be a resonating chamber that air can get shaped by, as well as a salient location for the hand to be in contact with.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the nose! We talk about why noses are so popular cross-linguistically (seriously, nasals are in 98% of the world’s languages), what the nose looks like inside (it’s bigger than you think!), and increasingly cursed methods that linguists have tried to use to see inside the nose (from giving yourself the worst headache to, yes, sticking earbuds up your nostrils). We also share our favourite obscure nose-related idioms, map the surprisingly large distribution of the “cock-a-snook” gesture, and try to pin down why the nose feels like an intrinsically funny part of the body.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

We’re 9 years old! For our anniversary, we’re hope you could leave us a rating our review on your favourite podcast app to help people who encounter the show want to click “play” for the first time: we’ll read out a few of our favourite reviews at the end of the show over the next year so this could be your words!

People have responded super enthusiastically to the jazzed up version of our logo that we sent to patrons earlier this year! So we’ve now made this design available on some very cute merch. Wear your Lingthusiasm fandom on a shirt or a mug or a notebook to help spot fellow linguistics nerds!

We’ve also made a new greeting card design that says {Merry/marry/Mary} Holidays! Whether you say these words the same or differently, we hope this card leads to joyful discussions of linguistic variation.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about our favourite words ending in nym! We talk about We talk about how there are so many kinds of nym words that are weirder and wackier than classic synonyms and antonyms, how even synonyms and antonyms aren’t quite as straightforward as they seem, and why retronyms make people mad but are Gretchen’s absolute favourite. Plus: a tiny quiz segment on our favourite obscure and cool-sounding nyms!.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

In this episode we follow our noses to end up covering a wide range of topics!

31 notes

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 108: Highs and lows of tone in Babanki - Interview with Pius Akumbu

Linguistic research has its highs and lows: from staging a traditional wedding to learn about ceremonial words to having your efforts to found a village school disrupted by civil war. Linguistic research can also be about highs and lows: in this case, looking at how high and low tones in Babanki words affect their meaning.

In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about the highs and lows of fieldwork in Babanki with Dr. Pius Akumbu, who’s a linguist from Babanki, Cameroon, and a Director of Research in African Linguistics at CNRS in the LLACAN Lab (the Languages and Cultures of Africa Lab) in Paris, France. We talk about Professor Akumbu’s documentation work on a wide variety of topics from the relationship of Babanki to other Grassfields and Bantu languages, what happens when words have a mysterious extra tone that is only produced under the right circumstances (floating tones), to that time he staged a false wedding to document traditional wedding ceremonial language – and led to a real couple opting for a traditional-style wedding of their own. We also talk about the process of founding a school in his home village to ensure that children have access to primary education in their own language.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

Lingthusiasm has more than twenty interview episodes, and you can find them all together on our Topics page, where we have a category for our interviews. We also have over 100 bonus episodes for patrons, with a few interviews there as well.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the joys and challenges of translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of Because Internet into Spanish! We talk about why Because Internet was the toughest and also most entertaining book he’s ever translated (for some of the same reasons), from coming up with localized Spanish versions of vintage internet memes to making the silly names of pretend people in the example sentences just as silly in Spanish. We also talk about leaving breadcrumbs for future translators in the original text and the special challenge of translocalizing the title: Arroba Lengua isn’t a literal translation of Because Internet, but it fits similarly into Spanish internet slang.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

11,715 notes

Linguistics and Language Podcasts

superlinguo:

Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Linguistics Behind the Scenes join linguistics professor Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer and linguistics enthusiast Dominic Piazza on a backstage tour of linguistic research. (transcripts for all episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

When Languages Meet A podcast miniseries for people interested in languages and multilingualism. From MultiBridge.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Now An interview podcast from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

The Language Neuroscience Podcast Neuroscientist Stephen Wilson talks with leading and up-and-coming researchers. For an academic audience. (Transcripts for all episodes).

Writing Wrongs Historic and contemporary forensic linguistic cases, from Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics.

Stories of Languages and Linguistics Created by students at Georgia Tech as part of their learning. Short episodes. 

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Hear us out! The science of second language listening from the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Words Unravelled Rob Watts (aka RobWords) and Jess Zafarris unravel the stories behind everyday terms. 

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno. 

Mexendo com a Língua A Spanish language podcast about linguistics, literature, culture, and more from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the Federal University of São Carlos.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Spanish language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Saussure e grida An Italian language podcast about linguistics from Irene Lami.

Ma langue maternelle n'est pas la langue de ma mère a French language podcast about the diversity of languages.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

  • Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.
  • Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.
  • Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.

  • The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

  • How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)
  • Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.
  • The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.
  • Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

  • The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.
  • Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)
  • Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)
  • Linguistics with Laura: 14 episodes from 2020/2021using the An Introduction To Language (Fromkin et al.) textbook as a basis. 
  • Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.
  • Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)
  • LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)
  • Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.
  • Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.
  • Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.
  • Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.
  • The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.
  • Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)
  • Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.
  • WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)
  • Sage Language and Linguistics
  • Let’s Talk Talk
  • Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe
  • GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.
  • Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.
  • Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 
  • Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.
  • Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.
  • Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.
  • Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.

This is an updated listing from December 2024. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! I wait until a show has at least 5 episodes before I add it to the list, and I like to let people know when transcripts are available.

2025 update!