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

147: The Language Beat (with Michael Erard)

Michael Erard has been covering language in major publications for a good long while. What has he learned, and what can linguistic communication take from his work? Micha

146: Beyond Words (with Karen Stollznow)

How do children learn language, and why can't other animals? Why are false friends between languages always naughty? And how is public perception of language changing? Dr

145: Face With Tears of Joy (live with Keith Houston and friends)

Emoji, once regarded as some kind of frivolous nonsense, have become an important way we communicate online. But how did these little pictures come to our devices? What i

144: Sociophonetics Deep Dive (with Jennifer Nycz, Lauren Hall-Lew, and Kelly Wright)

Why don't we all sound the same? Are some accents easier to learn? And are there reasons for the differences in how people sound and sign, or is it just random? We use

143: How to Kill a Language (with Sophia Smith Galer)

How does it feel to be isolated from a language and a culture that could have been yours? There are many paths to language loss, but there are also many ways back. Langua

142: If This Be Magic (with Daniel Hahn)

Translating Shakespeare takes a knowledge of language, culture, and poetry — both in English and in the target language. There are tradeoffs and pitfalls, but a skilled t

141: Why Q Needs U (with Danny Bate and Caitlin M. Green)

Each letter in our Latin alphabet tells a story. But what about spaces? Or writing direction? Should we get rid of some letters, or could we even do with more? Here to an

140: These Strange New Minds (with Christopher Summerfield and Caitlin Green)

We created software that could generate human-like text output quickly and easily. Now we're dealing with the societal upheaval it's caused. What are the risks and reward

139: Magpie Syntax (with Stephanie Mason)

Australian magpies are even cleverer birds than we thought. New research from Dr Stephanie Mason shows that they do two language-like things we used to think only humans

138: Pop-Up Gaeltacht (live with Laura Pakenham and friends)

Wherever Irish speakers in the world get together, you can have a "pop-up Gaeltacht"! And we're having one on this episode. We've got author and TG4 presenter Laura Paken

137: Are Trees Real? (with Yngwie Nielsen and Morten Christiansen)

What goes on in our minds when we construct an utterance? Linguists often use syntax trees to represent the structure of sentences, but are they psychologically real? Yng

136: These Languages Are Anchors (with Mary Walworth)

What will happen to the languages of climate refugees? Dr Mary Walworth has been working with the small island community of Nusi in Papua New Guinea, which was recently f

135: Linguistic Illusions (with Dan Parker)

"More people have listened to this episode than you have." Why does this sentence look so right, but feel so wrong? When your grammar says one thing, but your brain says

134: True Colour (with Kory Stamper)

How do you define what blue is? What even IS colour? Turns out, the quest to define colours was happening along with a standardisation crisis and a dictionary crisis at t

133: Why We Talk Funny (with Valerie Fridland)

We all have an accent — or several! And we use them to communicate things about us, and highlight aspects of our identity. So what's going on with the accents we hear? Ar

132: WotY 2025, the Final Word (with Kelly Wright)

We're talking to Dr Kelly Wright, friend of the show and data czar for the American Dialect Society. They run the biggest and most prestigious Word of the Year event, and

131: Words of the Week of the Year 2025 (live with friends)

Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/Mqf05kN-TaI It's Word of the Year season, and we're counting down our Words of the Week of the Year! In the time-honoured tradi

130: Back to the FTR (with Séan Roberts, Cole Robertson, and Annemarie Verkerk)

You know the story. The language you speak doesn't determine your savings. If your language has a future tense, there's no impact on the way you see or describe the futur

129: 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,

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 co