Podcast Episodes
Back to Search129: They Started It: Children and Language Evolution (with Madeleine Beekman)
We've asked linguists about how language began, but what would an evolutionary biologist tell you? Prof Madeleine Beekman says it's part of a complex web of body, brain, and community, and at the hea…
Published on 8 hours ago
128: Across the Universe (with Natan Last)
Among so many great word games, crosswords still reign supreme. How have they survived — and even expanded — in our digital age? What goes into a good puzzle, and will computer techniques take over? …
Published on 4 weeks ago
127: Oh (with Maia Chao, Kelly Wright, and Caitlin Green)
The "Oh" show was an experimental linguistics performance lecture. It happened in June 2025 at Creative Time HQ in New York City. Actors, musicians, and audience came together (with at least one ling…
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
125: Friends With Words (live with Martha Barnette and friends)
Martha Barnette is one half of the linguistics podcast A Way With Words, and author of the new book Friends With Words: Adventures in Languageland.
Her lifelong love of language has led her through s…
Published on 2 months, 1 week ago
124: Algospeak (with Adam Aleksic)
Creators have to be mindful of what to say and what not to say in their content. This affects the language we're exposed to — and what we say IRL. But it's part of an old process. Popular LingToker A…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
123: Conscious Language (with Karen Yin)
We've all seen style guides that tell us what to say and what not to say. Has a style guide ever asked you what you wanted to say? Or challenged you to examine your thinking? This one does. It's the …
Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago
122: The Interaction Engine (with Stephen Levinson)
How did language start? What do all languages have in common? How does language really work? Many answers have been posed to these questions, but one thing is for sure: interaction is the combustion …
Published on 4 months ago
121: Learning from LLMs (with Adele Goldberg)
How do large language models (LLMs) do their thing, and it is anything like how we do our thing? What can we learn about human language from this software? The answer might involve constructions — pa…
Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago
120: Gesture! (with Lauren Gawne)
Gesture is everywhere. We wave our hands when we talk, even if we're alone. Signed languages are, of course, full languages that use gesture. And it could even be argued that emoji are the online equ…
Published on 5 months, 1 week ago
119: Eurovision Goes to Uni (with Paulette van der Voet and Solveig Bollig)
It's Eurovision season! We love to talk about what we can learn about language from this international song contest, but even we didn't realise that there was so much to learn. Language choice, langu…
Published on 6 months ago