Episode 7: The Fax Machine of Gondor

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Linguistics After Dark

25 episodes

6 days ago

Linguistics After Dark is a podcast where three linguists (and sometimes other people) answer your burning questions about language, linguistics, and whatever else you need advice about. We have three rules: any question is fair game, there's no research allowed, and if we can't answer, we have to drink. It's a little like CarTalk for language: call us if your language is making a funny noise, and we'll get to the bottom of it, with a lot of rowdy discussion and nerdy jokes along the way. At the beginning of the show, we introduce a new linguistics term, and there's even a puzzler at the end!

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Episode 7: The Fax Machine of Gondor

Linguistics After Dark

1 hour 11 minutes 50 seconds

1 year ago

Episode 7: The Fax Machine of Gondor

Wherein we spin a shitpost question into linguistics gold.

Jump right to:

0:58 Mailbag; revisiting our treatment of linguistic typology
12:14 Language Thing of the Day: The Comparative Method
32:32 Question 1: Is English a creole?
40:34 Question 2: Are Old English and Modern English the same language?
51:07 Question 3: Is there any part of language that isn’t just slang and jargon that’s made it into the mainstream?
1:07:47 Last week’s puzzler answer
1:08:33 The puzzler: Take the name of an old communication technology, add a letter, and mix the letters around. You should get the name of a new communication technology — what is it?

Covered in this episode:

How a language's words and syntax can fall into different places on the typology spectrum
We're not Fractions After Dark, but we do like PIE
Why Grimm's Law should be called Rask's Rule
Star Wars spoilers via linguistic sound changes
A linguistics hot take with merit
The deterioration of the institution of marriage via etymology
Time is the cement mixer of language
A defense of business jargon

Links and other post-show thoughts:

Morphological Typology
Sir William Jones's speech, with a quote presaging the comparative method
Example of a Swadesh list
Examples of Grimm’s Law
Examples of English and German post-Grimm shifts
English Is Not Normal: A Case for English as a Semi-Creole Germanic, by John McWhorter (The article doesn’t appear to be accessible online, unfortunately.)
We tried to answer the question “how many Romance languages are there?” and the answer is both “a lot, more than you might think” and “the number varies depending on what counts as a language” which, honestly, we should have seen coming.
The History of English Podcast and the Saga Thing podcast
Lenition chart
Bill Labov's study about women being the agents of language change comes from Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 2: Social Factors, in particular chapters 8-11. We couldn’t find a PDF available anywhere.
The beacons are lit! Marketing calls for aid!

Ask us questions:

Send your questions (text or voice memo) to questions@linguisticsafterdark.com, or find us as @lxadpodcast on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Credits:

Linguistics After Dark is produced by Emfozzing Enterprises. Edits: Luca; transcript: Luca/Jenny; notes: Jenny/Eli. Our music is "Covert Affair" by Kevin MacLeod.

And until next time… if you weren’t consciously aware of your tongue in your mouth, now you are :)