lingthusiasm: Lingthusiasm Episode 90: What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are On Lingthusiasm, we’ve sometimes compared the human vocal tract to a giant meat clarinet, like the vocal folds are the reed and the rest of the throat and mouth is the body of the instrument that shapes the sound in various ways. However, when it comes to talking more precisely about vowels, we need an instrument with a greater degree of flexibility, one that can produce several sounds at the same time which combine into what we perceive as a vowel. Behold, our latest, greatest metaphor (we’re so sorry ..read more

lingthusiasm: Which of Daniel Jones’s 10 secondary Cardinal Vowels is your favourite? /y/ high front rounded vowel, as in German “über” or French “tu” /ø/ mid-high front rounded vowel, as in SAE “bird”, French peu", German “schön” /œ/ mid-low front rounded vowel as in French “coeur” (Cockney/NZ “bird”) /ɶ/ low front rounded vowel, as in how some Danish speakers say grøn “green” /ɒ/ low back rounded vowel, as in “not” in Received Pronunciation /ʌ/ low-mid back unrounded vowel - historically u in “but” but not common no /ɤ/ mid-high back unrounded vowel as in “foot” in South African En ..read more

This handbook chapter is a behind-the-scenes of how the Crash Course Linguistics video series came together. I’m really proud that this article includes contributions from the linguistics writing team, including my co-writer Gretchen McCulloch, and our fact checker Jessi Grieser, but also from members of the Complexly team, who produced the show, including Nicole Sweeney, Rachel Alatalo, Hannah Bodenhausen and Ceri Riley. As with the actual videos themselves, this was a dream team. Lingcomm that is inclusive doesn’t just happen as an accident - in this article we discuss some of the ways we se ..read more

This is a story I used to tell while teaching fieldworkers and other researchers about how to manage their data. It’s a moderately improbable story, but it happened to me and others have benefited from my misadventures. I haven’t had reason to tell it much lately, and I thought it might be useful to put into writing. This is a story from before cloud storage was common - back when you could, and often would, run out of online email storage space. Content note: this story includes some unpleasant things that happened to me, including multiple stories of theft (cf. moderately improbable). Also ..read more

lingthusiasm: Lingthusiasm Episode 89: Connecting with oral culture For tens of thousands of years, humans have transmitted long and intricate stories to each other, which we learned directly from witnessing other people telling them. Many of these collaboratively composed stories were among the earliest things written down when a culture encountered writing, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Mwindo Epic, and Beowulf. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about how writing things down changes how we feel about them. We talk about a Ted Chiang sho ..read more

In 2024 I have returned to my role as an editor of Himalayan Linguistics, and have joined the editorial boards of two other journals; Linguistics Vanguard and the Australian Journal of Linguistics. I’ve published in each of these journals before joining the editorial boards, and it’s lovely to be involved in three journals across three different areas of interest. Himalayan Linguistics is a fully Open Access journal, while Linguistics Vanguard and the Australian Journal of Linguistics have a mix of open access and licensed content. If you are an academic and your work is relevant to any of the ..read more

lingthusiasm: It’s easy to find claims that certain languages are old or even the oldest, but which one is actually true? Fortunately, there’s an easy (though unsatisfying) answer: none of them! Like how humans are all descended from other humans, even though some of us may have longer or shorter family trees found in written records, all human languages are shaped by contact with other languages. We don’t even know whether the oldest language(s) was/were spoken or signed, or even whether there was a singular common ancestor language or several. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch ..read more

I spent 2023 on leave to hang out with a new tiny human. I still found time for some linguistics, including regular Lingthusiasm episodes and even some intermittent blogging. I also got to reuse all my linguist pregnancy announcement jokes. Lingthusiasm Lingthusiasm turned 7 this year! We celebrated with a dozen main episodes as well as our monthly bonus episodes for patrons. We had some help to get through the year while I was on leave with interviews with linguists from around the world, including Lingthusiasm team members Martha Tsutsi-Billins and Sara Dopierela. We released our new Etymolo ..read more

2024 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences The LingComm grants are running again in 2024! We have (at least) two $500 (USD) grants in 2024. All of the info is on the LingComm website, including links for applying for a grant, or helping to fund additional grants, and an FAQ: We want to see more linguistics in the world!  The 2024 LingComm Grants are $500 (USD) to support linguistics communication projects that bring pop linguistics to broader audiences in engaging ways. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen McCulloch and Laur ..read more

At Christmas time, it always felt like every surface of my grandparents house was covered in Christmas cards. Cards from family and friends and from all corners of the world. My grandfather enjoyed writing and sending many cards, as well as receiving many in return. I really love the tradition of Christmas cards, although I only have the enthusiasm to send them to close family and friends. It’s one of the few times of the year I still take the time to make use of the postal service for social correspondence. Like many things I think of as canonically Christmas, seasonal greetings cards are onl ..read more