iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Daniel Solis @danielsolis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This zine is incredible 🤩

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 29/09/2026

This is superb

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K.Flynnx (St.) @kflynny369.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The music is great as well..

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K.Flynnx (St.) @kflynny369.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

bsky.app/profile/dori... Apparently gibberish, to imitate the sound of American English as heard by Europeans 🤣

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Em Fleming 🍁 @emilyflemily.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The new Map Men video shouts out "HOW TO KILL A LANGUAGE: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words" by Sophia Smith Galler, who I was just listening to on the latest @lingthusiasm.com episode! Love that.

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Adam Squires @adsquires.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I also heard a linguistics podcast making the same point linguistically - if I understood, even without the common ancestor point, there isn't a definition of a fish that would include everything we agree is a fish, and excluded everything that we agree isn't. But we can still talk about fish

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Daniel Solis @danielsolis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It feels like an epic crossover episode when linguists go on each other's shows. 😲

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 21/09/2026

You may also want to check out this about how magical systems interact with language (spell and spell have a common origin!) notably, this is the episode which someone on mastodon once complained was "too much about linguistics" dunno what you were expecting from a podcast called @lingthusiasm.com

lingthusiasm.com

Lingthusiasm - Lingthusiasm Episode 80: Word Magic

Lingthusiasm Episode 80: Word Magic The magical kind of spell and the written kind of spell are historically linked. This reflects how saying a word can change the state of the world, both in terms ...

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 21/09/2026

I seem to be picking up a bunch of new followers from this Pern thread so hello, welcome, if you like linguistic analyses of sff you may also want to check out this @lingthusiasm.com episode on cross-cultural communication in space (yes we have good transcripts if you're not a podcast person)

lingthusiasm.com

Lingthusiasm - Lingthusiasm Episode 116: Cross-cultural...

Lingthusiasm Episode 116: Cross-cultural communication (in space!) Sometimes, you’re talking with someone and you just seem to click. Other times, you just can’t seem to get comfortable: they’re sta...

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 20/09/2026

I just need all my fantasy authors writing pseudomedieval levels of tech to read Walter J Ong's Orality and Literacy, it's only like 100 pages!!

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Verbavia @verbavia.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Shanghainese is the counterweight. Documented since Edkins' grammar of 1853, with dictionaries and grammars from Qian Nairong for decades since. Scholarly attention was never the missing piece. It didn't convert into transmission, because the pressure was institutional.

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Luke Horn @lukebro92.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Have you heard of Saterfrisian, a language preserved in part because linguists coming to study it "before it disappears" made the speakers realize they had something worth preserving?

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Verbavia @verbavia.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Part of why it gets missed is that headline counts look fine. Wu Chinese has ~81M speakers, so Ethnologue rates it developing and Glottolog not endangered — both defensible on raw numbers. But Shanghai street surveys put under-25s near 70% fluency against 96% of adults. The gradient is the story.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 18/09/2026

Narratives about smaller languages often focus on the death side, but there's less on why this happens and how communities are fighting back In this episode we get enthusiastic with @sophiasgaler.bsky.social about her new book, How to Kill a Language soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

soundcloud.com

120: How (not) to kill a language - Interview with Sophia Smith Galer

Narratives about smaller languages often focus on the death and endangerment sides of the story. There's generally less on the social and political reasons why some languages are favoured at the expen

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 18/09/2026

soundcloud.com

120: How (not) to kill a language - Interview with Sophia Smith Galer

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 17/09/2026

In this bonus episode, we get enthusiastic about the relationship of language and music! 🎹 How languages with tone deal with musical pitches 🥁 Mapping drums and whistles onto sounds to communicate across long distances 🗣️ Physical scans of genres of music like opera and beatboxing

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Bonus 41: Tones, drums, and whistles - linguistics and music | Lingthusiasm

Both speech and music can involve making sounds using the human body, but they also have differences -- for example, music is generally more

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 17/09/2026

patreon.com

Bonus 41: Tones, drums, and whistles - linguistics and music | Lingthusiasm

Both speech and music can involve making sounds using the human body, but they also have differences -- for example, music is generally more

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Our new paper may be one of coolest studies I've ever done. We show that the structures of visual storytelling in comics aligns with the word order of the languages of the comic authors. Here's what we did... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Syntactic headedness aligns with visual narrative structure

Recent research has highlighted how visual narrative sequences involve similar structures and processing as syntax in language, yet no work has asked …

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John Chu @johnchu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Wikipedia took a picture of me wearing the @lingthusiasm.com comparative illusion T-shirt at WorldCon and now it's on my page! (Caption has a typo. It was at WorldCon, aka LACon V.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chu

en.wikipedia.org

John Chu - Wikipedia

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 06/09/2026

Why do some kinds of conversations seem to flow really easily, while other times, it feels like you can’t get a word in edgewise, or that the other person isn’t holding up their end of the conversation? This is the Lingthusiasm episode that people keep telling us changed their life

lingthusiasm.com

39: How to rebalance a lopsided conversation

Lingthusiasm Episode 39: How to rebalance a lopsided conversation Why do some conversations seem to flow really easily, while other times, it feels like you can’t get a word in edgewise, or that t...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 06/09/2026

lingthusiasm.com

39: How to rebalance a lopsided conversation

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Beanewood Commafurbatch Ending @beanedictc.dftba.social · 05/09/2026

🎶 Meat clarinet, I'm gonna keep on singing with my meat clarinet, I'm gonna keep on singing with this wet tube flesh, I'm gonna keep on singing with my meat clarinet, Meat clarinet 🎶

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Gabby HC @scriblit.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

God, what have you done? I've a meat clarinet From my lips to my lungs oh mama My windpipe and tongue Are a meat clarinet (the bassoon is my bum)

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 05/09/2026

Meat clarinet, I'm gonna keep on speaking from my Meat clarinet, I'm gonna keep on speaking from my Pink vocal tract, I'm gonna keep on speaking from my Meat clarinet, meat clarinet

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 05/09/2026

Today I learned that "meat clarinet" can be sung to the tune of "Pink Pony club" and if I have to know this then so do you

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 04/09/2026

Something I've been realizing about getting into zines is that they have some interesting things in common with podcasts They're both decentralized formats that aren't trying to feed an algorithm or encourage you to doomscroll lingthusiasm.com/zines

lingthusiasm.com

Zines

Zines that are enthusiastic about linguistics! Share your linguistics enthusiasm with people in the physical world using zines! Click on a zine cover to read it online, see extra bonus links, ...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 04/09/2026

It can be sort of hard to make the podcasts you're into leap off your phone and into people's hands, so we've made some Lingthusiasm zines! In this bonus episode we go Behind the Zines with our technical editor Leah Velleman about the process behind making the first four Lingthusiasm zines

patreon.com

Bonus 115: Behind the Zines - Interview with Leah Velleman | Lingthusiasm

We've been hearing from people that you're trying to get others to be as enthusiastic about linguistics as you are, but it can be sort of ha

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 03/09/2026

I like talking about hypocorisms as "hypocoros" for the same reason en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocor...

en.wikipedia.org

Hypocorism - Wikipedia

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Zack M @gla3dr.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

You mentioned the oxen/boxen thing with computer nerds, which immediately made me think of this Brian Regan bit. The whole thing is great and pretty relevant here tbh! I'm not sure what period of history you meant, but I wonder if it could have come from this or predates it youtu.be/ZPehhdkpBbk

youtu.be

Brian Regan Plurals

YouTube video by xxXxCOMEDYxXxx

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/09/2026

🎶 a-prefixing we go, a-prefixing we go, hi ho the dairy oh, a-prefixing we go 🎶 (linguistics takes on nursery rhymes en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Hunti... )

en.wikipedia.org

A-Hunting We Will Go - Wikipedia

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Your Penguin Friend @an-penguin.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

We're a-fixin' to prefix an a- and do some a-prefixin'

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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I have very limited knowledge about schwas, just stuff I've picked up from podcasts, reading etc. I recommend @lingthusiasm.com if you want to get into the nitty gritty of linguistics as a lay person. And Helen Zaltzman's Allusionist Podcast is another great one about language in general.

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Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

From @lingthusiasm.com's Patreon: Needed.

hi this is to make you aware that I've just coined "lolp:

it's like welp but for lol

okay carry on

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

And this is how I learned that the {a-} is derived from a preposition (probably "at" or "on") and hence the construction is analogous to the progressive constructions German "am Kochen" and Dutch "aan het koken" (both 'at cooking')

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Markˣ @shjsat.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I would call it "a-prefixin'", personally. (I can't do a-prefixin' and then pronounce the -ing the formal way.)

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Warren Maguire @warrenmaguire.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Also found in conservative Ulster English, but with a different use and meaning - it's used there as an agentless passive form. E.g. He's a-burying the-morra (He's being buried tomorrow), The house is a-building (The house is being built), There's no work a-doing (There's no work being done).

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Mahavideh Kshetra 🍉 (עדן) @mahavideh.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Oh, we're goin' a-a-prefixin', are we?

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 30/08/2026

It's called a-prefixing, and it's been around in English for a long time, still found in some varieties! The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project has a whole article about it here ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/a-...

ygdp.yale.edu

A-prefixing | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 28/08/2026

I was listening to this episode and thinking about the unexpected ways people have gone grammatically with the kirby meme bc I expected "eat their frame / ate their frame" but mostly people are like "you gotta kirby that shit" or "she kirby'd them"

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Colin McMillen @mcmillen.dev · 28/08/2026

i don't speak French at all but thanks to @gretchenmcculloch.com and @lingthusiasm.com, I immediately understood this French-Canadian meme

reddit screenshot. on the left side, a fight with "LAKE AMERICA VS LAKE ONTARIO". on the right side, a person smoking and saying "TABARLAC"

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 24/08/2026

We do have a fair number of SFF authors who tell us they follow @lingthusiasm.com for worldbuilding ideas! I think it could work as a crossover!

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 27/08/2026

We're also No Such Thing As A Fish fans! Fun crossover moment!

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Neil Fazakerley @neilfaz.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

@lingthusiasm.com loved your irregulars episode, especially the bit on child learning patterns. I once noticed my daughter say that she ‘satted down’ and it utterly delighted me to realise she’d learned the irregular past ‘sat’ but then added the regular ending -ed just to be sure.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 23/08/2026

You have linguistic questions, we have linguistic advice! Fun linguistics experiments you can do with your friends, linguistic etiquette about initiating people's accents, language learning scenarios, and more!

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Bonus 100: Advice #2 - Fun linguistic experiments, linguistic etiquette, and language learning scenarios | Lingthusiasm

Are there linguistics things in your life that you would like advice about? In honour of our 100th bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, and becaus

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neemias @nsfio.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

disgusting! buying one of each

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Stephanie Campisi @stephcampisi.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

blursed merch

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