Can you hear colours? Or smell sounds?
We’re starting to understand synaesthesia — the blending of senses that some people experience. Now language researchers are using synaesthesia to understand how we process language, and even how language got started in …
Swedish is a great language, and we have a lot of questions about it.
What about its unusual and hard-to-pronounce sounds? Why are people in Sweden so good at learning English? And are we going to see the emergence of Swinglish …
What happens when emoji go wrong?
We all love to use emoji, but their inherent ambiguity means that misunderstandings can happen — not only across cultures, but across devices.
Linguist Daniel Midgley makes it clear on this episode of Talk …
Brand names can get lost in translation.
When a company tries to market a product overseas, sometimes the result is international zany hijinks ahoy. But not all the stories are true — there are plenty of urban legends around. Who …
Other animals don’t have language like we do, but some of them might be getting awfully close.
A recent experiment claims that some birds use a form of syntax — that they combine their signals in a way that’s always …
Our listeners have questions, and we have answers.
Why do we say boo? or a whole ‘nother? And our Latin-minded friends have a few questions, as well.
Linguist Daniel Midgley answers them all on this episode of Talk …
Hinglish. It’s not Hindi. It’s not English. So what is it?
It’s a hybrid language spoken by about 350 million Indian people. And it’s getting bigger all the time. But what’s it like, and what function does it have for …
Sometimes English spelling doesn’t make much sense.
But even though many influential people have tried to reform our wacky orthography, the anomalies persist. Will English spelling reform ever work?
Linguist Daniel Midgley spells it out on this episode of Talk …
Are our vocabularies shrinking? Is bureaucratic double-talk a sinister form of code designed to short-circuit original thought?
Author Don Watson thinks so, and explains why in his latest book Worst Words. But how does his view stack up to language …
What happens when computers can use language like humans can? Language workers may be out of a job.
Translators, teachers, and others are watching with concern. But is there reason to think that we’re on the verge of solving all …
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