Congrats! It’s a Language.” (Language Lifecycle Part 1: Birth)

We say love is love is love is love. And that’s true! But it’s also รัก if you’re Thai. Yêu và quý if you’re Vietnamese. And a lot of hard work no matter where you’re from. In this episode of Radiolingo, the sweet sticky mess that is romance. 

Welcome to Part 2 of our Language Lifecycle series: what causes languages to become endangered, or even die? We’ll discuss the role of colonization on language, and the efforts some communities are taking to revive their dying ways of speaking.Shownotes: https://cherokeepreservation.org/https://www.cherokee.org/about-the-nation/donations/https://language.cherokee.org/language-programs/

Constructed Languages and New Languages In the first of our two part series on the life cycle of languages, we address how language is born. We’ll dive into the creation of constructed languages – languages made for film or TV (or even just for fun) – and natural languages, and how the process behind both reveals why new languages come into existence.

What is the oldest swear word in English? Does swearing help manage pain? We bring you 6 fun lessons on swearing and cursing. 

Language can reflect and reinforce gender expectations. Are there ways to make language more inclusive?

From "Seinfeld" to "Squid Game", thanks to streaming, audiences worldwide have access to more TV shows and movies from other countries than ever before, and that includes content in other languages. As such, the localization industry is booming, and the nature of subtitling, dubbing, and captioning is rapidly changing and expanding. We dive into the distinct processes and challenges regarding localization, and how they affect what we see on screen.

How and why do we make assumptions based on the way people speak? What is considered “proper,” or “correct” language – and who decides that, anyway?

Host Ahmed Ali Akbar has always had trouble getting people to say his name “correctly.” Why? This episode explores how second generation immigrants choose names, and how a name can impact our lives in more ways than we’d think. 

From Crooked Media and Duolingo, this is Radiolingo, a new limited series that investigates all the ways language shapes our world and how our world shapes language. Hosted by Ahmed Ali Akbar, an audio journalist and James Beard Award-winning writer, each episode introduces a new way of looking at the impact of language across our lives, our relationships, our culture and much more.