The magical kind of spell and the written kind of spell are historically linked. This reflects how saying a word can change the state of the world, both in terms of fictional magic spells that set things on fire or make them invisible, and in terms of the real-world linguistic concept of performative utterances, which let us agree to contracts, place bets, establish names, and otherwise alter the fabric of our relationships. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about word magic! We talk about how the word magic systems are set up differently in three recent fantasy books we like: Babel by R.F. Kuang, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. We also talk about linguistic performatives: why saying “I do” in a movie doesn’t make you married, aka Felicity Conditions, aka an excellent drag name; performativity as applied to gender (yup, Judith Butler got it from linguistics); the “hereby” test; and how technology changes what counts as a performative. Read the transcript here - https://lingthusiasm.com/post/718799528026882048/transcript-episode-80-word-magic Announcements: People often ask us to recommend interesting books about linguistics that don't assume prior knowledge of linguistics, so we've come up with a list of 12 books that we personally recommend, including both nonfiction and fiction books with linguistically interesting elements! Get this list of our top 12 linguistics books by signing up for our free email list. Email subscribers get an email once a month when there's a new episode of Lingthusiasm, and this month existing subscribers will see a link to our linguistics books list! If you find this any time in the future, you'll get the books list in the confirmation email after you sign up. https://lingthusiasm.com In this month’s bonus episode, we get excited about the results of the 2022 Lingthusiasm Survey. We talk about synesthesia fomo, whether people respond differently to kiki/bouba depending on whether they're aware of them as a meme, complicating the "where is a frown?" map, the plural of emoji, and more! Plus, we mentioned swearing in this episode? Yeah, we’ve got bonus episodes about that too. www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds! Our patrons let us keep making the main episodes free for everyone and we really appreciate every level of support. www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/717705460623491072/episode-80-word-magic

Spoken languages can change the pitch or melody of words to convey several different kinds of information. When the pitch affects the meaning of the whole phrase, such as rising to indicate a question in English, linguists call it intonation. When the pitch affects the meaning of an individual word, such as the difference between mother (high mā) and horse (low rising mǎ) in Mandarin, linguists call it tone. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about tone, intonation, and the combination of the two. We talk about various meanings of intonation, such as question, list, floor-holding, emphasis, enthusiasm, and sarcasm, and how different languages use different shapes of intonation contours for functions like these. We also talk about things languages do with tones, from changing meanings of individual words to indicating grammatical information like negation. Finally, we talk about the many, many options for writing tone and intonation (from highly technical proposals to fun internet creations), how tone interacts with lyrics/melody in songs, and how “high” versus “low” tone is actually a culturally-specific metaphor -- could we start calling tones “thin” and “thick” or “big” and “small” instead? Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/715162109812637696/transcript-episode-79-tone-and-intonation-tone Announcements: In this month’s bonus episode, originally recorded as a liveshow on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server, your host Gretchen gets enthusiastic about how languages do gender with special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod. We answer your questions about lots of things related to language and gender, including: gender-neutral versions of sir/ma'am and dude/bro, why linguistic gender even exists, how people are doing gender-neutral and nonbinary things across related languages, and how neopronouns are often made by recycling bits from a language's canonical pronouns. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds! Our patrons let us keep making the main episodes free for everyone and we really appreciate every level of support. www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/715161716945813504/episode-79-tone-and-intonation-tone-and

Communicating is about more than the literal, dictionary-entry-style words that we say -- it’s also about the many subtle ingredients that go into a message, from how you keep your audience in mind to how you portray the actions of the people you’re talking about. In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch interviews Dr. Gabrielle Hodge, a deaf researcher and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She specialises in research relating to d/Deaf people, signed languages, and communication, and has worked with Auslan and British Sign Language (BSL) in Australia and the UK. We talk about Gab’s work analysing how people tell stories using a mixture of conventional signs (such as “book”) and enactment, aka showing what another person or character did using your body, such as depicting how someone is carrying a heavy book. We also talk about collaborations in multiple countries and assessing what makes a translation accessible to deaf people. We’re excited to bring you this bilingual episode in Auslan and English! For the full experience, make sure to watch the captioned video version of this episode at youtube.com/lingthusiasm (and check out our previous bilingual episode in ASL and English with Dr. Lynn Hou while you’re there). Read the transcript here - https://lingthusiasm.com/post/711999152213590016/transcript-episode-78-bringing-stories-to-life-in Announcements: Since we filmed this interview, Gab has accepted a position as Senior Lecturer in Sign Language Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. We’re excited to see more great work from her there! In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about four science fiction books/series we're read recently that project interesting future versions of English. We also talk about reading books set in the future but written in the past, and how several of these books now exist in a future that's in some ways more similar to their imagined futures than the time when they were being written. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. It’s thanks to our patrons that we’re able to occasionally bring all of you bilingual video episodes like this one. Find us at patreon.com/lingthusiasm For the links mentioned in the episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/711999142266912768/episode-78-bringing-stories-to-life-in-auslan

Singapore is a small city-state nation with four official languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. Most Singaporeans can also speak a local hybrid variety known as Singlish, which arose from this highly multilingual environment to create something unique to the island. An important part of growing up in Singapore is learning which of your language skills to use in which situation. In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about how kids learn language in Singapore with Woon Fei Ting, who’s a Research Associate and the Lab Manager at the Brain, Language & Intersensory Perception Lab at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. We talk about how the rich multilingual environment in Singapore led Fei Ting and the lab to do language documentation while trying to figure out how kids learn to talk in Singapore, creating a dictionary of Red Dot Baby Talk (named after how Singapore looks like a red dot on the world map). We also talk about Singlish more generally, some words that Gretchen has learned on her trip, doing research with kids and parents via Zoom, and the role of a lab manager and other lab members in doing linguistic research. Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/709464013986217984/transcript-episode-77-how-kids-learn-language-in Announcements: Our liveshow is in just a few days!! Gretchen will be chatting to Dr Kirby Conrod (from our episode about the grammar of singular they lingthusiasm.com/post/615600862742609920/lingthusiasm-episode-43-the-grammar-of-singular) about language and gender on February 18th (Canada) slash 19th (Australia)! You can find out what time that is for you here (www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Lingthusiasm+Liveshow&iso=20230218T16&p1=179&ah=1). This liveshow is for Lingthusiam patrons and will take place on the Lingthusiasm Discord server. Become a patron before the event to ask us questions in advance or live-react in the text chat. This episode will also be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: ask us questions about gender or tell us about your favourite examples of gender in various languages and we might include them in the show! Join us at www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about what we've been up to in 2022 and what's coming up for 2023. We also talk about our favourite linguistics paper that we read in 2022 slash possibly ever: okay, yes, academic papers don’t typically do this, but this paper has spoilers, so we STRONGLY recommend reading it yourself here before listening to this episode, or check out the sample paragraph on the Patreon post. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds, and get access to this weekends liveshow at www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For the links mentioned in the episode:https://lingthusiasm.com/post/709463972446879744/singapore-is-a-small-city-state-nation-with-four

Language names come from many sources. Sometimes they’re related to a geographical feature or name of a group of people. Sometimes they’re related to the word for “talk” or “language” in the language itself; other times the name that outsiders call the language is completely different from the insider name. Sometimes they come from mistakes: a name that got mis-applied or even a pejorative description from a neighbouring group.  In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about how languages are named! We talk about how naming a language makes it more legible to broader organizations like governments and academics, similar to how birth certificates and passports make humans legible to institutions. And like how individual people can change their names, sometimes groups of people decide to change the name that their language is known by, a process that in both cases can take a lot of paperwork.  Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/707010521186107392/transcript-episode-76-where-language-names-come Announcements:  We’re doing another Lingthusiasm liveshow! February 18th (Canada) slash 19th (Australia)! (What time is that for me?) We'll be returning to one of our fan-favourite topics and answering your questions about language and gender with returning special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod! (See Kirby’s previous interview with us about the grammar of singular they.) This liveshow is for Lingthusiam patrons and will take place on the Lingthusiasm Discord server. Become a patron before the event to ask us questions in advance or live-react in the text chat. This episode will also be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: tell us about your favourite examples of gender in various languages and we might include them in the show! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from previous interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you. Think of it as a special bonus edition DVD from the past two years of Lingthusiasm with director's commentary and deleted scenes from interviews with Kat Gupta, Lucy Maddox, and Randall Munroe. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds, and get access to our upcoming liveshow! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For the links mentioned in the episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/706926160206086144/episode-76-where-language-names-come-from-and-why