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 :)