Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.

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 keep each other safe. A new book Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love is both a language book and a memoir, connecting the strands of language learning, language love, and language loss. Daniel speaks with author Dr Julie Sedivy. Also: Large language models have proven adept at duplicating patterns of language that humans find possible. But what about impossible language patterns? Can LLMs learn those? And what even is an impossible language? Dr Matt Spike explains. Timestamps Cold open: 0:00 Intros: 0:34 News: 5:49 Interview with Matt Spike: 32:01 Related or Not: 50:57 Interview with Julie Sedivy: 1:05:34 Words of the Week: 1:33:33 The Reads: 1:55:04 Outtakes: 2:01:21

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 look at language from our friends' point of view, and a celebration of our great community. Dr Kelly Wright joins us. Big thanks to our friends who joined us, and to everyone who's listened over the years. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Xc0S_O4KrhY Timestamps Cold open: 0:00 Intros: 1:17 News: 9:19 PharaohKatt tells us about Speech Pathology Week 2024: 27:00 Related or Not (with polls!): 40:23 Words of the Week: 56:52 Self-indulgent twaddle about the show and thank yous: 1:23:16 The Reads: 1:30:50 Outtake: 1:35:24

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 group. But that's just the beginning. How are dogwhistles different from slurs? How do they licence behaviour? Do progressives dogwhistle? Dr Elin McCready is the author of Signaling Without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles. We're also joined by Lizzy Hanks and Dr Jesse Egbert, who are working on the LANA-CASE corpus, a huge corpus of conversational English. It aims to bring representation to a diverse group of English speakers, and they're looking for contributors. Dr Rikker Dockum is our special guest host. Timestamps Intros: 0:00 News: 3:01 Interview with Lizzy Hanks and Jesse Egbert: 16:47 Related or Not: 35:45 Interview with Elin McCready: 45:57 Words of the Week: 1:17:47 The Reads: 1:39:43

There are lots of Englishes out there, but the way we approach varieties of English sets learners up to fail. How do we combat language ideologies out there in the world — and in our own minds? Dr Ruanni Tupas is the editor of an important new book: Investigating Unequal Englishes: Understanding, Researching and Analysing Inequalities of the Englishes of the World. We're joined by our special guest host Dr Nicole Holliday, and we are tackling a torrent of words — political and not — that the current news cycle has thrown at us. Timestamps Intros: 0:44 Words of the Week (coconut, weird, brat): 12:41 Related or Not: 55:25 Interview with Ruanni Tupas: 36:36 More Words of the Week (International Blue Screen Day / Crowdstrike, rawdogging, fedupedness, combining form -nomenon, fridgerton): 1:53:43 Comments: 2:11:15 The Reads: 2:13:47