Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century and—because many have never been recorded—when they’re gone, it will be forever. Dr. Ross Perlin, a linguist and co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Today
Elizabeth Anne Davis, "The Time of the Cannibals: On Conspiracy Theory and Context" (Fordham UP, 2024)
In 2009, the body of a former president of the Republic of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, was stolen from his grave. The Time of the Cannibals reconsiders this history and the public discourse on it to reconsider how we think about conspiracy theory, and specifically, what it means ... Show More
1h 30m
Nov 23
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Mar 2021
Jeffrey Shandler, "Yiddish: Biography of a Language" (Oxford UP, 2020)
The most widely spoken Jewish language on the eve of the Holocaust, Yiddish continues to play a significant role in Jewish life today, from Hasidim for whom it is a language of daily life to avant-garde performers, political activists, and LGBTQ writers turning to Yiddish for ins ... Show More
1h 3m
Jan 2023
Bringing dead languages back to life
Australia used to be one of the most linguistically diverse places, with over 200 languages. Today, many of Australia’s indigenous languages are considered “highly endangered”. Inspired by his native language, Hebrew, Ghil’ad Zuckermann is a linguistics professor who is on a miss ... Show More
26m 13s
Mar 2021
54: How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
If you go to the linguistics section of a big library, you may find some shelves containing thick, dusty grammars of various languages. But grammars, like dictionaries, don’t just appear out of nowhere -- they’re made by people, and those people bring their own interests and prio ... Show More
41m 16s
Feb 2023
20: New Languages for New Worlds: ConLangs and the Case of Esperanto
In this episode we introduce artificial languages: a group of languages spoken, among other places, on Avatar's Pandora, or Tolkien's Middle-Earth. But the first stop of our trip is actually in Eastern Europe, where Esperanto was created in 1887. In the second part of the episode ... Show More
26m 43s
Mar 2022
N. J. Enfield, "Language Vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists" (MIT Press, 2022)
Nick Enfield’s book, Language vs. Reality: Why Language is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists (MIT Press, 2022), argues that language is primarily for social coordination, not precisely transferring thoughts from one person to another. Drawing on empirical research, Enfield ... Show More
1h 6m
Jan 2022
Keith Kahn-Harris, "The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language" (Icon Books, 2021)
A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point. Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial – the warning message found inside Kinder Surprise eggs:
"WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under ... Show More
47m 2s