In 2025, Lauren Gawne and I reached our 100th episode of Lingthusiasm, our podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! It’s a special format featuring 100 fun things about linguistics, which makes it a great entry point to the show if you haven’t tried it yet or are looking for something to forward to people. We also celebrated our 100th bonus episode (does that make this year actually our…
This year, we put out 12 episodes of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics!
Lingthusiasm episodes assume no prior knowledge, only enthusiasm! They can be listened to in any order, so if you see a title that entices you, jump on in:
Lingthusiasm Episode 111: Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!!
Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!? Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!? Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that’s its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life.
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn’t created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn’t look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven’t succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we’ve actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
Whether you say them the same or differently, hope you have a joyful festive season!
Do you need your friends and loved ones to know just how much of a linguistics nerd you are when sending out holiday greeting cards? Send ‘em Lingthusiasm’s {Merry, marry, Mary} Holidays card to let them make jokes about the merry-marry-Mary merger AND the n400 brain wave produced in response to unexpected words. Two linguistics references for the price of one, brought to you by Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.
I designed these cards because I just wanted to send them to some linguist friends over the holidays, but then I realized that their first reply was probably going to be “these are awesome, can I send some to people too??” so now they’re in @lingthusiasm’s merch store.
1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar.
Day 1
Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind.
Day 2
Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way.
Day 3
I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT.
Day 4
Cerise and violette are both foods that double as colour terms, so today is Kory Stamper’s True Color, about the history of writing colour definitions in black and white dictionaries. This is my advance copy but it’s coming out next year and I highly recommend it!
Day 5
Apple cinnamon caramel, with Babel by RF Kuang: an initial rush of sweetness, a lingering aftertaste that’s far more complex. A book about the tension of translation as powerful magic
Day 6
Lavender and apricot are foods that underwent long and meandering journeys through the ancient world to get to us today, so I’m pairing them with The Odyssey (translation by Emily Wilson)
Day 7
Coffee caramel spread paired with The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (whose geology-based swear word system I loved linguistically) for their extensive histories of systemic exploitation
Day 8
Lemon verbena white nectarine and peach with The Language Lover’s Puzzle book by Alex Bellos. This wordlist feels like the intro to a word problem, and this book contains language puzzles in profusion, plus solutions if you get stuck & context notes on the languages!
Day 9
Vanilla caramel, a classic flavour, with the oldest pop linguistics book I own, a copy of Language Made Plain by Anthony Burgess (yes, the Clockwork Orange guy also wrote an intro to linguistics: the penciled flyleaf reminds me I bought it used for 50¢, in high school)
Day 10
Blueberry, lychee, rose jam paired with To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. An Indigenous girl learns to work with a dragon in an alt history of American colonization (with really interesting linguistic elements) plus a jam featuring fruits from both places
Day 11
Pineapple, rum, and vanilla gives me old and golden vibes that I’m pairing with Bea Wolf: Zach Weinersmith’s retelling of Beowulf as a kids fable in full Anglo Saxon meter. It’s glorious.
Day 12
Raspberry redcurrant jelly with Babel: Around the world in twenty languages by Gaston Dorren. Redcurrant makes me think of Europe, so I’ve paired it with this Dutch writer’s window into the twenty most spoken languages of the world.
Day 13
Did you know that a word for honey but not for bees has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, leading to theories that they traded for honey? Honey apricot with Proto: How one ancient language went global by Laura Spinney
Day 14
When I visited Australia a few years ago it was mango season, so I’ve paired this ginger mango jam with Gesture: A Slim Guide by Lauren Gawne, who’s my cohost on @lingthusiasm and the reason I was there!
Day 15
Orange guava lime jam with Language City by Ross Perlin. (I promise the real cover is more eye-catching than my advance copy!) Stories of the 700 languages actively spoken in New York City, by the same processes of human movement that let me eat guava today in snowy Montreal
Day 16
Orange yuzu grapefruit marmelade paired with Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn for their shared Z. It taught me what an episolary novel and a pangram were as a young person and cemented my @lingthusiasm partnership with @superlinguo early on when we realized we were both fans of it
Day 17
Cinnamon clementine pear, a bright yellow jam which I found particularly delicious, paired with a bright yellow Because Internet that I wrote myself!
Day 18
Pink peppercorn and cherry with a spicy book of gestures that I apparently acquired in high school at some point and forgot about until rediscovering it in a box recently?
Day 19
Mandarins, Italian paired with Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan
Day 20
Blackcurrant peach with Sichuan peppercorns paired with True Biz by Sara Novic (my much-battered copy from taking it with me to ASL camp last summer), for the feeling of being simultaneously numb and on fire
Day 21
Strawberry passion fruit paired with The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky, since I’ve eaten both fruits under many names: fraise, erdbeere, maracuyá, lilikoi…
Day 22
Raspberry lychee jam paired with The Art of Language Invention by David J Peterson: the multiple pronunciations of lychee/litchi reminded me of the retconning necessary to make some of the original Game of Thrones names fit in with the subsequently fleshed-out Dothraki language
Day 23
Strawberry rhubarb paired with The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: rhubarb is another word for nonsense, and the narrator of this linguistically intriguing book is barred from nonsense out of danger it’ll become true
Day 24
Salted caramel paired with Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I remember when the salted caramel trend was suddenly everywhere, which reminds me of this magical system relying on living usage
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Anglo-Saxon meter, by Philip Craig Chapman-Bell. Via Etymonline on Facebook, who says “An Internet classic; but I can no longer find it where I first found it (Cathy Ball’s Old English reference pages).”
Incipit gestis Rudolphi rangifer tarandus
Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor – Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas! Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele. Ða hofberendas mid huscwordum hine gehefigodon; Nolden þa geneatas Hrodulf næftig To gomene hraniscum geador ætsomne. Þa in Cristesmæsseæfne stormigum clommum, Halga Claus þæt gemunde to him maðelode: “Neahfreond nihteage nosubeorhtende! Min hroden hrædwæn gelæd ðu, Hrodulf!” Ða gelufodon hira laddeor þa lyftflogan – Wæs glædnes and gliwdream; hornede sum gegieddode “Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor, Brad springð þin blæd: breme eart þu!”
Rendered literally into modern English:
Here begins the deeds of Rudolph, Tundra-Wanderer
Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer – That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils! The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed. The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words; The comrades wouldn’t allow wretched Hrodulf To join the reindeer games. Then, on Christmas Eve bound in storms Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him: “Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one! You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!” Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer – There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang “Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer, Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!”
Bonus 106: The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript - Interview with Claire Bowern
In the 1600s, an antique book is recorded in an alchemist’s library in Prague, containing intriguing but puzzling drawings, like plants with unnatural cuboid roots, as well as a strange writing system, with some familiar letters and some utterly unfamiliar. This book became known as the Voynich Manuscript, after a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912, and the meaning (or lack thereof) that lies on its 240 parchment pages is a puzzle that’s intrigued cryptographers, historians, linguists, and more for centuries.
In this episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern, who’s a professor at Yale University, researcher of language documentation and historical linguistics, and creator of a class about the enduring enigma that is the Voynich Manuscript. We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn’t created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn’t look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven’t succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we’ve actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar.
Day 1
Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind.
Day 2
Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way.
Day 3
I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT.
Day 4
Cerise and violette are both foods that double as colour terms, so today is Kory Stamper’s True Color, about the history of writing colour definitions in black and white dictionaries. This is my advance copy but it’s coming out next year and I highly recommend it!
Day 5
Apple cinnamon caramel, with Babel by RF Kuang: an initial rush of sweetness, a lingering aftertaste that’s far more complex. A book about the tension of translation as powerful magic
Day 6
Lavender and apricot are foods that underwent long and meandering journeys through the ancient world to get to us today, so I’m pairing them with The Odyssey (translation by Emily Wilson)
Day 7
Coffee caramel spread paired with The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (whose geology-based swear word system I loved linguistically) for their extensive histories of systemic exploitation
Day 8
Lemon verbena white nectarine and peach with The Language Lover’s Puzzle book by Alex Bellos. This wordlist feels like the intro to a word problem, and this book contains language puzzles in profusion, plus solutions if you get stuck & context notes on the languages!
Day 9
Vanilla caramel, a classic flavour, with the oldest pop linguistics book I own, a copy of Language Made Plain by Anthony Burgess (yes, the Clockwork Orange guy also wrote an intro to linguistics: the penciled flyleaf reminds me I bought it used for 50¢, in high school)
Day 10
Blueberry, lychee, rose jam paired with To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. An Indigenous girl learns to work with a dragon in an alt history of American colonization (with really interesting linguistic elements) plus a jam featuring fruits from both places
Day 11
Pineapple, rum, and vanilla gives me old and golden vibes that I’m pairing with Bea Wolf: Zach Weinersmith’s retelling of Beowulf as a kids fable in full Anglo Saxon meter. It’s glorious.
Day 12
Raspberry redcurrant jelly with Babel: Around the world in twenty languages by Gaston Dorren. Redcurrant makes me think of Europe, so I’ve paired it with this Dutch writer’s window into the twenty most spoken languages of the world.
Day 13
Did you know that a word for honey but not for bees has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, leading to theories that they traded for honey? Honey apricot with Proto: How one ancient language went global by Laura Spinney
Day 14
When I visited Australia a few years ago it was mango season, so I’ve paired this ginger mango jam with Gesture: A Slim Guide by Lauren Gawne, who’s my cohost on @lingthusiasm and the reason I was there!
Day 15
Orange guava lime jam with Language City by Ross Perlin. (I promise the real cover is more eye-catching than my advance copy!) Stories of the 700 languages actively spoken in New York City, by the same processes of human movement that let me eat guava today in snowy Montreal
This summer, I went to ASL camp! I spent a week at Bob Rumball Camp of the Deaf, in Parry Sound, Ontario, at their ASL Adult Immersion Summer Camp, voices off for 6 nights and 7 days! This was my first time doing any sort of language immersion camp in my various experiences learning languages, and I definitely see why people like them, I really felt liked I levelled up significantly in my signing…
