Irish is among Europe's oldest languages. It's a near miracle that anyone speaks it today. Patrick talks with online Irish teacher Mollie Guidera whose students include a Kentucky farmer who speaks Irish to his horses; also with Irish scholar Jim McCloskey who developed a love of the language when he spent a summer living with Irish speakers. Irish is changing fast, with far more of its speakers learning it as a second language, while the native-speaker population declines.



Music by Elliot Holmes, Zorro,Hugo Paquette, Medité, and Fleurs Douces. Photo courtesy of Mollie Guidera. 



Read a transcript of this episode, with more photos here. And sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly newsletter here.

The Irish language renaissance

Israel Jesus used to be ashamed of being from the Mexican state of Oaxaca and speaking the local indigenous tongue, Triqui. When he moved to Salinas, California, a kid in his high school told Jesus he was destined to work in the fields nearby. But it was his knowledge of Triqui that sent him on a different path. A hospital in Salinas recruited Jesus to interpret for the increasing number of Triqui-speaking patients. It's part of an effort in California and beyond to expand medical interpretation to Mexico's many indigenous languages. 



This episode was reported by Nina Porzucki. Music by Alexander Boyes, Blue Dot Sessions, Grupo Sin Control, Medité, and Podington Bear. Photo of Israel Jesus by Nina Porzucki. Read a transcript, with many more photos, here. And sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly(ish) newsletter here.

From linguistic shame to pride

Mastering six languages sounds like a slog, right? But in some corners of Europe, it happens—maybe not effortlessly, but more easily than in, say, Ohio. Gaston Dorren grew up speaking Limburgish at home, and Dutch at school. He fell in love in German and picked up Spanish in Latin America, all the while keeping English and French in his back pocket. He tells Patrick about his love of verbing nouns, and Dutch people's unconsciously sexist choice of pronouns. Also, Gaston is a fabulous multilingual (of course) singer. 



Gaston Dorren has written several books including two translated into English. The photo shows him in in a typically multilingual moment on vacation in Turkey. He is reading the German translation of book originally written in English: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. (Photo credit: Marleen Becker) 



Music in this episode by Medité, Magnus Ringblom, Podington Bear and Trabant 33. Read a transcript here. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly(ish) newsletter here.

Easing into multilingualism

Does the brain of an improv comedian or freestyle rapper function in a particular way? Is it processing language faster than a regular, lower-improvising brain?  Or is something else also going on, something to do with how we judge ourselves?  We asked our pal Ari Daniel to look into this. He found a group of researchers and a group of professional improvisers working together on some of these questions. 



Photo of Dutch-based comedy improv group Easy Laughs by Robin Straaijer. Music in this episode by Fleslit, Magnus Ringblom and Trabant 33. 



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How the brain of an improv performer works

A conversation with comedian with Samir Khullar who grew up speaking Punjabi, Hindi, English and French. He does standup in all those languages, sometimes mixing them up. He has toured more than 40 countries, but audiences in his native Québec perhaps see the best of him. That's where he performs a bilingual French/English show called You're Gonna Rire (and now, You're Gonna Rire 2). As a Quebecer/Québécois, Sugar Sammy's comedy exposes the absurdity of language politics while also celebrating multilingualism and difference.   



Photo of Sugar Sammy by Charles William Pelletier/Creative Commons. Check out Sugar Sammy's tour dates here. 



Music in this episode by Jules Gaia, Josef Falkensköld, Stationary Sign, and August Wilhelmsson. Read a transcript here. Sign up for Subtitle's newsy, nerdy, fortnightly(ish) newsletter here.

Sugar Sammy’s multilingual comedy

When a word first enters the language, it sounds weird to some, radical to others and comforting to just a few. Only later does it seem 'natural.' So it was with the honorific Ms in the 20th century. So it may be with the non-binary Mx. Today, British banks and utilities routinely give customers the option to use Mx. Will American companies follow suit? And what might Shakespeare have thought? His gender-neutral 'master-mistress,' is arguably more poetic than Mx, but it might be a bit of a mouthful for our times.



This episode was reported by Leo Hornak and Nina Porzucki. Music  by Stationary Sign, The Freeharmonic Orchestra, Podington Bear, Josef Falkensköld and Silver Maple. The photo of performer Justin Vivian Bond, who uses Mx, is by Rhododendrites via Creative Commons. Read a transcript of the episode here.



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Is Mx here to stay?

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. 



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Americans, Brits and the foreignness of English

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. 



Thanks to Suzanne Hogan for the photo of German language activists Neil and Marilyn Heimsoth. More photos and info on Camp Cole's German-Americans are here. Find out more about A People's History of Kansas City here, and you can email the producers here. The reporting for this episode was supported by the Midwest Genealogy Center. 



Music in this episode by Luella Gren, Dream Cave, Primary Color, Podington Bear, Blue Dot Sessions and Breath before the Plunge.



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A German-speaking outpost in the American Midwest

In our upcoming season, we have stories about voice clones, tongue twisters and small languages fighting back. We'll hear from comedians, bilingual lovers and badly-behaved grandmothers. Look out for the first episode on November 1. 



Music by Harry Edvino and The Freeharmonic Orchestra. Photo by Patrick Cox.



Subtitle is a production of Quiet Juice and the Linguistic Society of America. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsletter here.

Season 4 is coming

Never heard of the Udi language? Get ready to be beguiled by this poster child for endangered languages. The history of the Udi people and their language includes an ancient kingdom, an exodus to escape persecution, and the creation of a bespoke alphabet. Udi also has a unique grammatical feature, a form of linguistic behavior that scholars previously thought was impossible. No wonder the small Udi-speaking community of Zinobiani in the Republic of Georgia attracts visitors from around the world ,  including Subtitle's Patrick Cox.   



Music in this episode by Howard Harper-Barnes, Christian Andersen, Rand Aldo, Farrell Wooten, Leimoti, and Stonekeepers. 



The photo shows linguist Thomas Wier and Udi activist Alexander Kavtaradze at a memorial of Kavtaradze's great great uncle, Zinobi Silikashvili, founder of Zinobiani. For more photos and a transcript of the episode, go here.  



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The precious secrets of Udi

If you want to know where African American English is headed, listen to Shondel Nero. Shondel was born in the Caribbean nation of Guyana where she code-switched between Guyana Creolese and colonial British English. As a young adult she moved to North America, eventually settling in New York City where she became a professor of language education at NYU. Shondel tells guest host Ciku Theuri that the various versions of English spoken by Black immigrants are rubbing off on Black American speech. Aided by the likes of TikTok, African American English is now going through a period of rapid change. 



Music in this episode by HATAMITSUNAMI, Matt Large, Rocket Jr., and Osoku.  More about Shondel Nero here. The photo of Shondel was taken at Kaieteur Falls, the world’s largest single drop waterfall located deep in the rainforest of her native Guyana. 



Read a transcript of the episode here. And sign up for Subtitle's newsletter here.

The future sound of Black English

Guest host Ciku Theuri speaks with music writer Jordannah Elizabeth about the intimate relationship between music and Black American speech. That connection was never closer than in the 1930s and 40s when Cab Calloway's Hepster Dictionary and Sister Rosetta Tharpe's groundbreaking rock 'n' roll established new artistic and linguistic pathways. This is the second of our three-part series on African American English. 



Jordannah Elizabeth is the founder of the Feminist Jazz Review and author of the upcoming A Child’s Introduction to Hip Hop.



Music excerpts in this episode by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, The Ink Spots, Roscoe Dash, Gucci Mane, Tems, Nbhd Nick and Sarah, the Illstrumentalist. Photo of Bill Robinson, Lena Horne and Cab Calloway from the 1943 musical film, Stormy Weather, via Wikimedia Commons. Read a transcript of the episode here. 



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How music has shaped African American speech

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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Where did African American English come from?

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. 



Read a transcript of this episode here. Subscribe to Subtitle’s newsletter here.

A brief history of death threats

If Latin is dead, why is it easy to find meetups of people speaking it? Why is a group of scholars and lexicographers working on what has become a century-spanning Latin dictionary project? Former Latin student Cristina Quinn challenges Patrick Cox to seek answers to these and more questions about the supposedly dead language that is still all around us. 



Photo by Patrick Cox. Music by Marc Torch, Arthur Benson, Frank Jonsson, Farrell Wooten, and Andreas Boldt. Read a transcript of this episode and see more photos here. Subscribe to Subtitle’s newsletter here.

Latin, the undead language

Ellen Jovin belongs to that rare breed of human with a passion for grammar. You will too if you spend a few minutes with her, your grammar anxiety melting away in minutes. That's what happens when apostrophe-challenged Patrick meets Ellen at her Grammar Table in New York's Central Park. There, Ellen fields questions from passers-by about commas, semicolons, ellipses and weird-sounding neologisms. Ellen tells Patrick about her word-obsessed childhood, her love of hyphens, and why a Jehovah's Witness who approached the Grammar Table, "was not fully there for the apostrophes." 



Ellen Jovin's new book about her Grammar Table adventures in 47 states is Rebel with a Clause.  



Photo by Patrick Cox. Music by Greatfool, Frank Jonsson, Arthur Benson, Jules Gaia. Read a transcript of this episode here. Subscribe to Subtitle's newsletter here.

Learning to love apostrophes

Steve Jobs' last words were: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." Oscar Wilde went with: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." (At least, that's how the story goes.) But the way most of us part company with language at the end of our lives is more halting and gradual. Even when a dying loved one is unable to speak clearly, other forms of communication often take over: noises, gestures, touch and eye contact. 



We have stories in this episode from a hospice nurse, from journalists covering mental health and internet culture, and from language writer Michael Erard who is writing a book about last words and their relationship to first words. 



Photo by Duncan C via Flickr/Creative Commons. Music by Dream Cave, Nylonia, Alexandra Woodward, Cobby Costa, August Wilhelmsson, David Celeste, Martin Landstrom, Gavin Luke, Rand Also, Airae, Alan Ellis, Jules Gaia. Read a transcript of this episode here. Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Hello, Goodbye

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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How the Ojibwe language survived the pandemic

For centuries, Russians have dismissed the Ukrainian language as "Little Russian," its speakers as simple-minded peasants. The Kremlin has sporadically and unsuccessfully tried to suppress the language. Now Russia's invasion of Ukraine has driven even some Russian-speaking Ukrainians to switch to Ukrainian. We trace the defiant rise of this language with the University of Washington's Laada Bilaniuk, American-born daughter of Ukrainian parents.  



Photo of Andriy Khlyvnyuk via YouTube screengrab. Music in this epsiode performed by Andriy Khlyvnyuk, Mad Heads XL, Jay Varton, Farrell Wooten, Lucention, Frank Jonsson, Felix Salt. Read a transcript of this episode with more photos here.

Ukraine’s linguistic patriotism

Kavita Pillay recently moved to Helsinki with her Finnish husband and half-Finnish daughter. While husband and daughter effortlessly embraced their new linguistic surroundings, Kavita...didn't. In this episode, she seeks guidance from other immigrants with varying degrees of Finnish mastery. Among them, an opera singer who finds melody in verb conjugations, and an Iraqi-born linguistics major whose fluent Finnish is sometimes questioned by locals. 



Photo by Sauli Pillay. Music by Greatfool; Farrell Wooten; Jharee; Aoroa; Vanity Street; Raymond Grouse; Matt Large; At The End of Times, Nothing; Dye O. Read a transcript of this episode here.

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