podcast

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

by Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård

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

06.12.2025 • 02:53:34

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)

19.11.2025 • 02:25:50

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)

22.10.2025 • 02:07:26

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...

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

10.10.2025 • 02:15:56

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)

12.09.2025 • 01:31:09

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. ...

124: Algospeak (with Adam Aleksic)

23.08.2025 • 01:49:40

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. But...

123: Conscious Language (with Karen Yin)

03.08.2025 • 01:54:22

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)

12.07.2025 • 00:55:34

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)

29.06.2025 • 02:22:45

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)

10.06.2025 • 01:54:22

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...