Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne
111 episodes
2 weeks ago
Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
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Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
100: A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
41 minutes 16 seconds
11 months ago
100: A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics
This is our hundredth episode that's enthusiastic about linguistics! To celebrate, we've put together 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics, featuring contributions from previous guests and Lingthusiasm team members, fan favourites that resonated with you from the previous 99 episodes, and new facts that haven't been on the show before but might star in one of the next 100 episodes in greater detail.
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne talk about brains, gesture, etymology, famous example sentences, languages by the numbers, a few special facts about the word "hundred" and way more! This episode is both a fun overview of the vibe of Lingthusiam if you've never listened before, and a bonus bingo card game for diehard fans to see how many facts you can recognize.
We also invite you to share this episode alongside one of your favourite fun facts about linguistics and help more people find Lingthusiasm in honour of our 100th episodiversary! Whether you pick something new that resonates from this episode, or share the fact you were sitting on the edge of your seat hoping we'd mention, we look forward to staying Lingthusiastic with you for the next 100 episodes.
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjAxMDg1Njk3MQ
Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/772874564563845120/transcript-episode-100
Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you! First, we go back to our interview with phonetician Jacq Jones, previously seen talking about how binary and non-binary people talk. Then, we return to computational linguist Emily M. Bender to talk about how Emily's students made a computational model of Lauren's grammar of Lamjung Yolmo and how linguistics is a team sport. Finally, we return to our group interview with the team behind Tom Scott's Language Files to talk about sneaky Icelandic jokes and the unedited behind-the-scenes version of the gif/gif joke.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: patreon.com/posts/118982443
For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/772874257193730048/lingthusiasm-episode-100-a-hundred-reasons-to-be
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
