Netflix's lavish new adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem is the latest 'translation' of one of this century's best, and best-selling, sci-fi novels. In this episode, we track the role of translation—on screen and on the page—in the global rise of Chinese sci-fi. Our guide is reporter and sci-fi aficionada Lydia Emmanouilidou who talks with several people involved in the Chinese literary scene, notably The Three-Body Problem's English translator Ken Liu.
German used to be one of the most widely-spoken languages in the United States. A survey in 1900 listed 613 US-based German-language newspapers. Today, only a handful survive, and German is barely spoken at all. One exception is Cole Camp, Missouri. Our guide, Suzanne Hogan, hosts public radio station KCUR's podcast, A People's History of Kansas City.
American English and British English aren't different languages. But they're not the same either, even if they're getting closer. There are all those different words for things: diaper/nappy, faucet/tap and so on. More challenging are common words used in subtly different ways: sure, reckon, middle class. Who better to ask about these and other terms than UK-based American linguist Lynne Murphy and her British husband and daughter? Spoiler alert: They don't always agree.
Lynne Murphy is the author of The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English. Music in this episode by Josef Falkensköld, Stationary Sign, Rebecca Mardal and Luella Gren. Photo courtesy of Wellcome Images/Creative Commons. Read a transcript of this episode here.
Some people have origin stories. Pardis Mahdavi has a hyphenation story. Her Iranian family was the target of a hate crime in Minnesota. She was stripped of her citizenship in Iran. Eventually she embraced the hyphen between the words 'Iranian' and 'American' as her identity: two cultures within one person.
But what exactly is the function of a hyphen? Does it unite two ideas, or divide them? Together with Pardis Mahdavi, we trace the many disputes surrounding this seemingly humble horizontal line, from Romans and Celts, then via Hollywood to politicians and lexicographers.
Photo of Pardis Mahdavi (center) and her family courtesy of Pardis Mahdavi. More info about her here.
Music by Damma Beatz, Nylonia, Walt Adams, Amaranth Cove, Marc Torch, Pulsed, and Saira Ridley.
Until recently, issuing a death threat required some effort. Today, anyone with a phone or computer can make a threat—or receive one. The result is a “golden age” for the dark realm of personal threats.
Forensic linguist Tanya Karoli Christensen and forensic psychologist Lisa Warren help us trace the history of death threats from eloquently penned letters to casually written social media posts. As the platforms for making threats are changing, so too are the methods for assessing their potency.
Music in this episode by Magnus Ringblom, 91nova, Fabien Tell, BLUE STEEL, Peter Sandberg, Amaranth Cove and Andreas Boldt. Illustration by James Gillray (1756-1815) via Wikimedia Commons.
Why do so many of us laugh at a word like 'poop' but not at, say, 'treadmill'? Is it all down to their meaning? Or are we also responding to the sound of these words? Psycholinguist Chris Westbury set out to discover the answer. Assisted by an inventive computer, Westbury and colleagues dreamed up a bunch of non-words (like "snunkoople"), and tested their funniness on the public. We discuss the results, as well as our favorite funny words—and we get some authentically amusing help from comedians Joanna Hausmann and Filip Jeremic.
Music in this episode by The Fly Guy Five, Little Island Leap, Arthur Benson, Josef Falkenskold, V.V. Campos, Birdies, Chasing Madison and Mike Franklyn. Photo by Nola Cox. Read a transcript here. And watch the strangest soccer match of all time (think Schopenhauer) here.
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In this episode, we tell the inspiring, heartbreaking story of Radio Haiti. For several decades, the station broadcast not just in French, spoken by Haiti's elite, but also in Kreyòl, spoken by rich and poor alike. The Kreyòl-language programs communicated directly with the rural poor—the 'outside people'—popularizing issues of inequity and corruption. Helping us tell Radio Haiti's story are Michèle Montas, widow of the station's assassinated owner Jean Dominique, and archivist Laura Wagner.
Music in this episode by Samba Zao, Sosyete Grandra, Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen (Jean-Rabel), MIUT, Nico Rengifo, and Timothy Infinite. The photo is of a painting by Maxan Jean-Louis, courtesy of Radio Haiti Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Read a transcript with some great photos here.
If you’ve ever set boundaries, taken up a gratitude practice or manifested, you’re already well-versed in the language of self-help. Over its long history, self-help has acquired its own lexicon, often repurposing words along the way. Nowadays, the flavor is American but that wasn't always the case. We delve into the past and present of self-help language with Kristen Meinzer, co-host of the podcast, By the Book.
Some people have origin stories. Pardis Mahdavi has a hyphenation story. Her Iranian family was the target of a hate crime in Minnesota. She was stripped of her citizenship in Iran. Eventually she embraced the hyphen between the words ‘Iranian’ and ‘American’ as her identity: two cultures within one person.
But what exactly is the function of a hyphen? Does it unite two ideas, or divide them? Together with Pardis Mahdavi, we trace the many disputes surrounding this seemingly humble horizontal line, from Romans and Celts, then via Hollywood to politicians and lexicographers.
How do you keep your language alive while also protecting the health of elders? That’s been the quandary facing Ojibwe educators during the pandemic. As native speakers, Ojibwe elders were the primary teachers of the language, but they were also the most vulnerable to COVID. Leah Lemm of Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Ojibwe band tells us how she and others figured out how to continue learning while also ensuring the wellbeing of teaching elders like her own father.
Music in this episode by Airae, Gridded, Megan Woffard, Headlund, Joseph Beg, Jules Gaia, Rymdklang Soundtracks, Molecular Machine. Read a transcript of the episode here.
Some Ojibwe language resources recommended by Leah: James Vukelich’s Ojibwe Word of the Day; the University of Minnesota’s online Ojibwe dictionary; the Ojibwe Rosetta Stone project; and the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe and the Minnesota Historical Society’s Aanjibimaadizing book project.
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Are the roots of African American English mainly African? Or English? Or something else? Linguists—and others—don’t agree. Ciku Theuri guides us through the theories. Opinions from Nicole Holliday, John McWhorter, John Rickford and Sunn m’Cheaux, who we also profiled in a previous Subtitle episode.
Music in this episode by A P O L L O, Jobii, and Tilden Parc. Photo of Michelle Obama by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons. Read a transcript of the episode here.
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Until recently, issuing a death threat required some effort. Today, anyone with a phone or computer can make a threat—or receive one. The result is a “golden age” for the dark realm of personal threats.
Forensic linguist Tanya Karoli Christensen and forensic psychologist Lisa Warren help us trace the history of death threats from eloquently penned letters to casually written social media posts. As the platforms for making threats are changing, so too are the methods for assessing their potency.
Music in this episode by Magnus Ringblom, 91nova, Fabien Tell, BLUE STEEL, Peter Sandberg, Amaranth Cove and Andreas Boldt. Illustration by James Gillray (1756-1815) via Wikimedia Commons.
If you’re under the impression that encyclopedias and dictionaries in the West were always organized from A to Z, think again. We have chosen to classify knowledge in many ways, each reflecting the values of the age. Patrick Cox speaks with Judith Flanders, author of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order about the centuries-long resistance to alphabetization, and why A to Z may now be here to stay.
Photo of a dictionary in the Boston Public Library by Trevor Pritchard via Creative Commons. Music in this episode by Circus Marcus, Jason Leonard, Alexander Boyes, Podington Bear, Die Minimalistin, Yan Terrien and Lobo Loco. Read more about Judith Flanders here. Read a transcript of the episode here.
In 2012, a children’s book in Sweden sparked a nationwide debate— not about the book’s content but a three-letter word used by the main character. Hen was a relatively new, gender-neutral pronoun which challenged Swedish grammar norms. The use of hen tapped into a conversation the country was already having about gender and equality. Can the introduction of one word make a difference in changing societal views? Nina Porzucki goes to Sweden to find out.
Photo by Nina Porzucki. Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. Read a transcript of this episode here.
Will technology make Braille obsolete as the primary reading tool for blind people? Will talking apps and audiobooks win out over embossed dots? Braille has been written off before; each time it has come back stronger. We trace Braille from its beginnings in Napoleon’s France, through the “War of the Dots” in the early 20th century to the age of the smart phone, and beyond.
