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

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

06 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 o...

129: They Started It: Children and Language Evolution (with Madeleine Beekman)

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

128: Across the Universe (with Natan Last)

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

127: Oh (with Maia Chao, Kelly Wright, and Caitlin Green)

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The "Oh" show was an experimental linguistics performance lecture. It happened in June 2025 at Creative Time HQ in New York City. Actors, musicians, a...

125: Friends With Words (live with Martha Barnette and friends)

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martha Barnette is one half of the linguistics podcast A Way With Words, and author of the new book Friends With Words: Adventures in Languageland. He...

124: Algospeak (with Adam Aleksic)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Creators have to be mindful of what to say and what not to say in their content. This affects the language we're exposed to — and what we say IRL. B...

123: Conscious Language (with Karen Yin)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We've all seen style guides that tell us what to say and what not to say. Has a style guide ever asked you what you wanted to say? Or challenged you t...

122: The Interaction Engine (with Stephen Levinson)

12 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did language start? What do all languages have in common? How does language really work? Many answers have been posed to these questions, but one ...

121: Learning from LLMs (with Adele Goldberg)

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do large language models (LLMs) do their thing, and it is anything like how we do our thing? What can we learn about human language from this soft...

120: Gesture! ✨👐✨ (with Lauren Gawne)

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gesture is everywhere. We wave our hands when we talk, even if we're alone. Signed languages are, of course, full languages that use gesture. And it c...

119: Eurovision Goes to Uni (with Paulette van der Voet and Solveig Bollig)

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's Eurovision season! We love to talk about what we can learn about language from this international song contest, but even we didn't realise that t...

118: The A.I. Con (with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna)

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence (so-called) is typified by its boom and bust cycles, and we're in a boom now. But as more and more money pours in with decreas...

117: Sometimes It Feels Like I'm the Only One Trying to Fix English Around Here (live with friends for LingFest25)

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/wxGeXMzlwng If you repeat something twice, how many times did you do it? Can more than one dinner be ...

116: Enough Is Enuf (with Gabe Henry)

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Spelling reform in English: a constant failure? Or a secret success? Waves upon waves of optimists have tried to make English spelling reflect its sou...

114: Bye Bye I Love You (with Michael Erard)

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First words and last words get a lot of attention. But how did words get to have such a place of prominence? What would we see if we focused on intera...

113: "Official" English (with Carmen Fought)

02 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Breaking news: The president of the United States intends to sign an executive order designating English the official language of the USA. Is this a b...

112: WotY 2024: The Last Word

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What really goes on behind the scenes at the biggest Word of the Year vote in linguistdom? Are we really going to stick with sanewashing for our word?...

111: Words of the Week of the Year 2024 (live with Mignon Fogarty and friends)

21 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's our Words of the Year episode, where we do a vibe check on all the words and name one of them our Because Language Word of the Year. We're joined...

110: Diego's Dossier (with Diego Diaz)

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What's in the linguistic news? Diego knows. He's been tracking down stories and words for us all year long, and now he's curated an entire show for us...

109: Language Oppression in Tibet (with Gerald Roche and Sasha Wilmoth)

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Minority languages are under threat everywhere, but Tibet represents a particularly difficult challenge. The Tibetan language family is under pressure...

108: Mailbag of Etymology (with Douglas Harper)

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're joined for the first time by Douglas Harper, proprietor of the world-renowned Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com). He's here to help us...

107: Linguaphile (with Julie Sedivy and Matt Spike)

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 o...

106: What One Thing? (with Mark Ellison)

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What one thing explains the most about language? Here to answer that question is linguist and friend of the pod Dr Mark Ellison — and many of our li...

105 or 500 (live with Kelly Wright and friends)

15 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 lan...

104: Dogwhistles (with Elin McCready, Lizzy Hanks, Jesse Egbert, and Rikker Dockum)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

103: Unequal Englishes (with Ruanni Tupas and Nicole Holliday)

03 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

102: Signed Language Mailbag (with Adam Schembri, Christy Filipich, and Mark Ellison)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do signed languages have in common? How do oral languages influence signed languages? How do they influence each other? Here to answer these ques...

101: Talkin' Chomsky (with Katie Martin and Abduweli Ayup)

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Noam Chomsky is one of the world's foremost thinkers, and his impact on linguistics is incalculable. Yet many people are only familiar with his politi...

100: Spicy Mailbag

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A hundred episodes already? To celebrate, we're doing our favourite kind of episode: a Mailbag. Why is it a BLOW JOB when there's no blowing? Why JOB...

99: Gender in Germany (with Rob Tegethoff and Ciarán from Corner Späti)

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What's going on in Germany? How are people talking about gender in the German language, and how is freedom of expression being handled? We have a coup...

98: Origin Uncertain (with Anatoly Liberman)

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How much can we really know about the words we use? What are the facts behind some of the most tangled etymologies in English? And is our "Related or ...

97: The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions (with Eli Burnstein)

28 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What's the difference between a KINK and a FETISH? Does it matter if you ASSUME or PRESUME? English is full of these close groups of words, and author...

96: Language City (with Ross Perlin)

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

New York City is home to a lot of languages! Sometimes a sizeable language community can live on just a couple of floors of an apartment building. Dr ...

95: Why the Far-Right Demagogues Language (with Caitlin Green and Maureen Kosse)

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Language authorities. Right-wing politicians. White supremacists and feminists. What do they have in common? They're all working together to fight gen...

94: Mailbag of Sextillion and Three

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Kelly Wright is helping us understand the link between public health and language maintenance. And she's helping us with our voluminous Mailbag! W...

93: Stop! Grammar Time (live with Ellen Jovin and friends)

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In honour of Grammar Day (4 March), we are joined live by special guest Ellen Jovin, who regularly dispenses grammar advice and wisdom from the Gramma...

92: In the First 600 Milliseconds (with Rachel Nordlinger)

22 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language.  New research from Dr Rachel Nordlinger and team shows that we do...

91: Linguistic Time Machine, part 2: Prehistory

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're climbing back into the linguistic time machine and taking a look at language in the long view. We'll find out what language was like 100,000 ye...

90: Enpoopification (with Grant Barrett and Tim Brookes)

21 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He's here to tell us what it's like at Dictionary.com, and what went down at ...

89: Words of the Week of the Year 2023 (with Cory Doctorow and friends)

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The public has voted, and a winner has been decided! We're looking all the words chosen by the various dictionary bodies, and counting down our Words ...

88: Linguistic Time Machine, part 1: History

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was language like a year ago? Ten years ago? A hundred? What about before that? We're climbing into the Linguistic Time Machine and finding out. ...

87: Trans-Inclusive (with Andrew Perfors)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is a woman? Or a man? Or a chair, or a sandwich? Or anything, really? "Gender critical" people are making language into a vector to attack the ri...

86: Mailbag of Dog Sushi (with Nicole Holliday)

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We've got mail, and linguistic MVP Dr Nicole Holliday is here to help us sort some things out around here. And we chat about the state of lingcomm tod...

85: The Dictionary People (with Sarah Ogilvie)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army of volunteers submitted hundreds of ...

84: Diego's Discourse (with Diego Diaz)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What's happening with signed language in Argentina? How are terms for gender changing in the Spanish language? And are Zoomers making work language mo...

83: You're All Talk (with Rob Drummond and Robbie Love)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us feel like we can't speak with ou...

82: Girl Dinner (live with our patrons and friends)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our patrons are joining us live to give us their news, words, and stories. That's right, it's a Potluck episode! What's a "girl dinner"? What's the ot...

81: Mother Tongue (with Jenni Nuttall)

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Women's bodies, women's occupations, women's experiences. So often in history, the discourse about women has been by men, about women. And that means ...

80: Mailbag of TLAs

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Listeners have once again sent us some great questions, and we have answers! Why do we TALK SHIT and not SPEAK SHIT? Do we KEEP OUT, or STAY OUT? Why...

79: A.I. Hype Hosedown (with Emily Bender and Jack Hessel)

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård

78: Forensic Linguistics, Really (with Helen Fraser, Georgina Heydon, Diana Eades, Seán Roberts, and Steph Rennick)

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minoritie...

77: Big Tent (live with Aris Clemons, Caitlin Green, Rikker Dockum, and friends)

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place? Why does our personal history and person...

76: Ooo! Yum! Uh… (with Emily Hofstetter, Eleonora Beier, and Russell Gray)

27 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why does everyone say OOO! when they see someone fall down? Why do we say YUM when we feed a baby? And what's the deal with fillers like UM? For this ...

75: Fake News (with Jack Grieve)

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How can you tell if a news story is intended to deceive? In one well-known case of journalistic deception, there were tells that required machine lear...

74: Mailbag of Go

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We're going deep into our Mailbag, and we're going to answer all your questions. Why do we say "here you go" when we give something to someone? Why c...

73: Consequences of Language (with Nick Enfield and Morten Christiansen)

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When language was innovated, what happened next? How did it change our abilities — and our responsibilities — to each other? Dr Nick Enfield shar...

72: PharaohKatt Is a Speechie Now

25 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Here's an entire show, curated by one of our most prolific contributors — newly minted speechie PharaohKatt! She's got news. She's got words. She tr...

71: You're Welcome, English! (live with friends, for LingFest23)

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For this special live LingFest23 episode, we'll again be voting on tricky language issues, and our votes will be binding on all English users for all ...

70: Free Speech, But… (with Dennis Baron)

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We all have freedom of expression, but what are its limits — social and legal? And how have governments tried to curtail it? We're talking through t...

69: Mailbagussy

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The American Dialect Society Word of the Year has been chosen — and it's a wonderful and terrible pick! Depending on who you're talking to. In this ...

68: Lazy in a Good Way (with Mark Ellison)

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In what was meant to be a casual chat, cognitive scientist Dr Mark Ellison answers galaxy-brain-level questions about how language works. Why aren't ...

67: Words of the Week of the Year 2022 (live with friends)

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We're counting down our Words of the Year, as voted by you! We're joined by our friends and patrons, and they've brought us some words we missed. And ...

66: ChatGPT Wrote This Episode (with Daan van Esch)

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

ChatGPT has just landed. It can generate text that seems fluid, plausible, and (surprisingly) not total nonsense. It's got a lot of people wondering w...

65: Naval Manoeuvres (with Chase Dalton)

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Many expressions we use come from the nautical domain. But are they nautical? Are they really? We've got Chase Dalton from the US Naval History Podcas...

64: Struggle Pile (with Kelly Wright)

20 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A chat with Dr Kelly Wright, who's been working on… well, really a lot. Kelly is at the juncture of a lot of areas we're keen on. Oxford's effort to...

63: Mailbag of Yeah-No (with Isabelle Burke)

03 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Just two words, but they do so much. But what exactly? Here to answer that question is Dr Isabelle Burke, who has studied yeah-no in depth. She's also...

62: Language in Spaaaaace (with Hannah Little)

22 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Yes, linguistics is all through the world of sci-fi, but science fiction has had a surprising impact on linguistic research as well. Dr Hannah Little ...

61: Together at Last

08 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's Ben, Hedvig, and Daniel all together in the same place for the first time. We're talking about the state of the show, the state of linguistics co...

60: The Crossworld (with Hayley Gold)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Language isn't just for communication — it's fun. For over a hundred years, crosswords have served as entertainment, and even been blamed for societ...

59: Mailbag of Ew

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In which we get together for a chat, talk about stuff we like, and — oh, yeah — answers a few questions from our great listeners. Other languages...

58: Expression Unleashed (with Thom Scott-Phillips and Joshua Blackburn)

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we communicate. But once, we didn't. What had to happen in our brains to make communication possible? And why don't other animals do it like we...

57: Potluck (live, with friends)

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our friends, listeners, and patrons give us so many great stories, news, and words, so for this live episode, we're having them tell these language st...

56: Diego's Digest

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our listeners and patrons send in so many great ideas, stories, and words. For this episode, listener and prolific contributor Diego has put together ...

55: Rebel With a Clause (with Ellen Jovin)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone's favourite tabletop grammarian is back! It's Ellen Jovin, proprietor of the Grammar Table. She dispenses grammar advice around New York City...

54: Slang (with Jonathon Green)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's crude. It's rude. And it's a lot of fun. Slang has been with us for as long as people didn't want others to understand what they were about. But ...

53: Mailbag of Compounds (with Tiger Webb)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Language titan Tiger Webb is helping us with our voluminous Mailbag. Hedvig is giving her annual Eurovision language roundup. And we're sorting throug...

52: The Language Game (with Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater)

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How is language like a game of charades? According to a new book, quite a lot. Charades players and language users improvise and work together to crea...

51: A Wug-Tonne of Advice (with Kitty Liu and Romany Amber)

01 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We had the pleasure of an interview with two up-and-coming linguists, wanting to find out more about the show and linguistic communication. It was suc...

50: Employing Linguistics (with Anna Marie Trester and Ellen)

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Linguistics is what we all love, but how do we make it pay? Turns out there are more ways than you might have thought of, and a new book is here to he...

49: Mailbag - It's That T Again (with Mignon Fogarty)

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lingcomm legend Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) joins us to answer all the questions in our Mailbag! And we have to ask her about National Grammar Day. ...

48: The Black Side of the River (with Jessi Grieser)

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Anacostia is a rapidly gentrifying suburb in Washington DC, and as Anacostia changes, so does the language. How do the original Black residents use la...

47: We Need to Talk About Grice (with Rikker Dockum)

20 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every Linguistics 101 student knows about HP Grice and his famous Maxims. They state that dialogue is usually cooperative — and when it doesn't appe...

46: Just Words (with Rebecca Shapiro)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Can dictionaries create a more fair world? One language observer sees that dictionaries, far from being a neutral chronicle of language, are capable o...

45: Mailbag of Words

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Words of the Year are out! And we're talking about 'em. We're answering all the questions in our voluminous Mailbag. We have here, there, and whe...

44: Words of the Week of the Year 2021 (with Lauren Gawne)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our listeners have voted, and here are all the words! Which were our top Words of the Week? Which were the worst? And what did all the dictionary peop...

43: Journal Club: Zoomies on Zoom (with Hadas Kotek and friends)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our friends and listeners bring us lots of great stories, questions, and words. So for this episode, we've invited them to present them themselves! Al...

42: Replicability Crisis (with Martine Grice and Bodo Winter)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The sciences are facing a replicability crisis. Some landmark studies were once considered settled, but then failed when they were retested. So have a...

41: Mailbag of Caitlin University (with Caitlin Green)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Here to help us answer our voluminous Mailbag is the tireless Dr Caitlin Green, Vice Cancellor of Caitlin University. Among our questions: NON-BINARY...

40: Dialect Playthrough (with Hakan Seyalıoğlu and Stephen Mann)

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dialect is a role-playing game about language and how it dies. Over the course of a game, players form an isolated community, create a private languag...

39: Is This a Reference? (with Sylvia Sierra)

01 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

You probably communicate with your friends using media references all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But why do we include media...

38: Generativism 2: How It's Going (with Taylor Miller and Adam Tallman)

14 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is the second of a two-parter on generativism, the linguistic school of thought originated by Noam Chomsky. This time, it's from the perspective ...

37: Generativism 1: How It Started (with David Adger and John Goldsmith)

30 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're doing a deep dive into generativism, the linguistic school of thought championed by Noam Chomsky. It's had an enormous impact on the direction o...

36: Journal Club: Clickety Clack (with Stephen Mann)

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Because Language team are talking through some of the most interesting research around, and you get to listen! Valuable medical information gets ...

35: Something's Got to Change (with Lesley Woods and Alice Gaby)

27 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Linguistics as a discipline throws up challenges to Indigenous linguists. At the same time, they're the ones called upon to fix it. It can't stay like...

34: OzCLO 2021: 2 Cool 4 School (with Elisabeth Mayer, Henry Wu, Victoria Papaioannou, and the students of Melbourne Girls Grammar School)

05 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistic Olympiad. It gets students together to compete and solve linguistic problems. It's also a gateway...

33: You're Wrong About Everett, Roberts, Blasi 2015

25 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

All it took was a tweet. Last week, linguists refocused their attention on a paper about humidity and tone. Was it bad linguistics? Environmental dete...

32: Fallen Leaves: The Chinese Languages (with Wu Mei-Shin, Ye Jingting, and Israel Lai)

18 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What we call sometimes Chinese is really a gigantic family of languages. They're somewhat divided in mutual intelligibility, and somewhat united in th...

31: All the Words (with Grant Barrett)

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Words of the Week are coming out of the woodwork, and who better to work through them with us than Grant Barrett of A Way with Words? Wowee.

30: Mailbag of Raspberries (with Helen Zaltzman)

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our Mailbag is once again full of questions, and podcasting luminary Helen Zaltzman is here to help us answer them! Why is the raspberry sound (PBTPB...

29: Cultish (with Amanda Montell and Jared Holt)

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Blog post with show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/29-cultish/ Support the show on Patreon: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ Language helps ...