Do you know from Yiddish?
A controversial new hypothesis has surfaced about its origins, but does it stand up to the data? And are you using Yiddish words without even knowing it?
Daniel Midgley speaks with lexicographer Ben Zimmer on …
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Ever read a language story, and felt something was a bit off?
Does your keyboard layout affect how you feel about words? Is it true that people couldn’t see the colour blue until modern times? How are you supposed to …
Where’s the language in your brain? Researchers have constructed a kind of brain atlas, showing the patterns of neural activation when we hear words.
And Klingon is at the centre of a legal battle. Can a language be under copyright — …
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 …
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Awards
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- CBAA Awards 2018: Best Radio Program — Talk
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- Talkley Award 2018
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