101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics
In honour of Lingthusiasm's 100th episodiversary, we've compiled this list of 101 public-facing places where linguists and linguistics nerds hang out and learn things!
17 podcasts about linguistics
Lingthusiasm — A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics!
The Vocal Fries — Language discrimination and how to fight it
The History of English — From Proto-Indo-European to Shakespeare in 180 episodes (and still running!)
A Language I Love Is — Guests (some linguists, some not) talk about languages they love and why
En Clair — Forensic linguistics and literary detection
Because Language — New guests every episode discuss their linguistic interests
The Allusionist — Stories about language and the people who use it
Subtitle — A podcast about languages and the people who speak them
Field Notes — Five seasons on linguistic fieldwork
Tomayto Tomahto — Language meets cog sci, politics, history, law, anthropology, and more
Word of Mouth — A long-running and wide-ranging linguistics program on BBC 4.
Words Unravelled - A new and very well edited etymology podcast with popular creators RobWords and Jess Zafarris
Something Rhymes with Purple — Learn the background behind another word or phrase each episode
Lexitecture — A classic etymology podcast with a huge back catalogue
A Way with Words — A "lively and upbeat" public radio call-in show about language and culture
Språket — A radio program in Swedish answering listener questions about language. We don't speak Swedish, but this was the most-mentioned non-English content in our listener survey!
Living Voices — A podcast in Spanish about endangered languages of the Amazon
12 nonfiction books about linguistics
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (Amazon; Bookshop) — A linguist shows how the internet is transforming the way we communicate
How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die (Amazon; Bookshop) by David Crystal — A journey through the different subsystems of language
That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships by Deborah Tannen (Amazon; Bookshop) — A pioneering researcher on conversations gives advice on how they can go wrong
Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self by Julie Sedivy (Amazon; Bookshop) — Scientific and personal reflections on nostalgia, forgetting, and language loss
The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building by David J Peterson (Amazon; Bookshop) — an accessible guide to making your own conlang
Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language by Arika Okrent (Amazon; Bookshop) — The history behind English's many oddities
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (Amazon; Bookshop) — A well-researched pushback on sexist language ideology
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (Amazon; Bookshop) — A lifelong lexicographer discusses the job and the things she's learned along the way
Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren (Amazon; Bookshop) — A quick, funny tour of the quirks of 60 European languages
Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New by Felicity Meakins, Gari Tudor-Smith, and Paul Williams (Amazon; Bookshop) — The story of Australian indigenous languages' resistance and survival
Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan (Amazon; Bookshop) — A writers' style and grammar guide focused on real usage, not made-up rules
The Language Lover's Puzzle Book: A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles by Alex Bellos (Amazon; Bookshop) — Solve puzzles about writing, grammar, and meaning drawn from real and fictional languages
Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages (Amazon; Bookshop) — An anthology of poems in endangered languages, with commentary
6 linguistically-inspired novels
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Imagine a world where linguistics was as vital — and as ethically compromised — as engineering is in ours
True Biz by Sara Nović (Amazon; Bookshop) — Love, friendship, and struggle at a residential high school for the Deaf
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by by Mark Dunn (Amazon; Bookshop) — "A progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" full of wordplay and weirdness
Semiosis by Sue Burke (Amazon; Bookshop) — Human space colonists communicate with sentient plants
Translation State by Ann Leckie (Amazon; Bookshop) — What does life look like for a perfectly genetically engineered alien–human translator? (Spoiler: weird, that's what.)
Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Includes the long short story that became Arrival, plus other reflections on humanity and change
13 linguistics youtube channels
Crash Course Linguistics — A whole linguistics course in 16 videos
Tom Scott's Language Files — Pithy language facts explained quickly and clearly
NativLang — Language reconstruction and the history of writing
Geoff Lindsay — Facts (and some scholarly opinions) about regional English pronunciation
The Ling Space — An educational channel all about linguistics
langfocus — A language factoid channel that digs deeper than many
K Klein — Language quirks, spelling reform, and a little conlanging
biblaridion — Teaching about conlanging and worldbuilding, with lots of linguistics along the way
RobWords — "A channel for lovers and learners of English"
Otherwords — "the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted"
LingoLizard — Widely spoken languages and their quirks, comparisons, and history
linguriosa — Spanish linguistics (in Spanish), including learning tips and linguistic history
human1011 — Quick accessible facts about linguistics (and sometimes other things)
Simon Roper — Language evolution and historical English pronunciation
10 shortform video channels about linguistics (tiktok/reels)
etymologynerd — Internet speak, etymologies and more! (reels)
linguisticdiscovery — Writing systems, language families, and more (reels)
jesszafaris — Fun facts about words, etymologies, and more (reels)
cmfvoices — An audiobook director talks about the linguistics of voice acting (eels)
mixedlinguist — A linguistics professor comments on the language of place, identity, politics, technology, and more (reels)
landontalks — Linguistic quirks of the US South (reels)
sunnmcheaux — Language and culture from Harvard's first and only professor of Gullah (reels)
dexter.mp4 — Talks about many branches of science, but loves linguistics enough to have a linguisticsy tattoo (reels)
danniesbrain — Linguistics and psychology from a researcher who studies both (reels)
wordsatwork — Quick facts on languages, families, and linguistic concepts (reels)
the_language — The Ojibwe language — plus food, dancing, and more
101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics
In honour of Lingthusiasm's 100th episodiversary, we've compiled this list of 101 public-facing places where linguists and linguistics nerds hang out and learn things!
8 linguistically-inspired videogames and board games
Heaven’s Vault (video game) — Decode a mystery hieroglyphic language as a space archeologist traveling with her trusty robot sidekick
Chants of Sennaar (video game) — puzzle your way through uncoding the language and world of The Tower
Tunic (video game) — You don’t need to decode the writing system to enjoy exploring this video game as an anthropomorphic fox, but some people have enjoyed the additional challenge of cracking the writing system
Cypher & Epigraph (video game) — Test and grow your cryptographic skills with these increasingly feendish puzzles
Wavelength (board game) — A relaxed and silly party game featuring comparatives and scales. Very fun for a flexible-sized group.
Xenolanguage (board game) — An ethereal storytelling game about communicating with aliens featuring a unique ouija-board inspired gameplay mechanic
The Gostak (interactive fiction) — A classic text adventure you need to decipher a secret language to play
IPA Scrabble (board game) — Do-it-yourself instructions for making your own International Phonetic Alphabet Scrabble tiles
7 blogs, newsletters, and magazines about linguistics
Nancy Friedman's substack — A professional name developer (that's a thing!) weighs in on trends
Language Log — One of the longest running linguistics blogs: a few professors discuss their interests
Separated by a Common Language — "Observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK"
Sesquiotica — Riffs on etymology and meaning
Language Hat — Another longtime classic, featuring literature, translation, and lexical curiosities
@official-linguistics-post — Sharing posts and conversations of linguistic interest from around Tumblr
Babelzine — A print magazine of language and linguistics, great for school libraries to subscribe to
9 linguistically-inspired movies and tv shows
Atlantis: The Lost Empire — A linguist protagonist meets a conlang plot device
Arrival — The most linguistic fieldwork you'll ever see in a sci-fi blockbuster
Darmok — The Star Trek episode that launched a thousand linguistics memes
CODA — The biggest names in ASL theatre in a multilingual movie
Avatar — The sci-fi epic that gave us Na'vi, one of the best loved conlangs
We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân — A documentary about the Wampanoag scholar who revived her nation's language
My Fair Lady — A classic musical about dialect, social class, and (of course) love
The King's Speech — Based on a true story: a speech-language pathologist helps King George VI overcome his stammer
Talking Black in America — A documentary series on African American English, Black ASL, and more
6 linguistics-related events and physical spaces
Planet Word (Washington, DC, USA) — An immersive language museum
Mundolingua (Paris, France) — A hands-on museum with exhibits on many branches of linguistics
The COSI language pod (Columbus, OH, USA) — Participate in linguistics experiments inside this science museum
The SLIYS summer camp (Columbus, OH, USA) — The Summer Linguistic Institute for Youth Scholars introduces high school students to linguistics
Kletskoppen Festival (Nijmegen, Netherlands) — A festival about language and language development for children, and their adults
International Linguistics Olympiad (2025 in Taipei, Taiwan) — An annual puzzle-solving competition for secondary school students, with many national editions in various countries
10 places to get even more
r/linguistics — A subreddit for discussing linguistics; check out their reading list (Note that we singled out this one for being a big, public, high-traffic community — but if you'd prefer a closed Discord server or a Facebook meme group or any other platform-specific thing, ask other linguistics nerds on that platform and you'll probably find one.)
Bluesky linguistics starter pack — Some linguists who post actively about linguistics, several of which have also made starter packs for specific subfields
conlang.org's community list — Pointers to the many places conlangs are discussed
Superlinguo's list of linguistics podcasts — Many more podcasts than we had room for
A very long list of pop linguistics books on All Things Linguistics — Many more books, too…
Linguistic Discovery's list of books — …and even more!
High School Linguistics' books list for teens — Get started early…
Superlinguo's list for kids — …and even earlier!
Mutual Intelligibility's resource directory — Links on a wide range of subjects
linguistics humor tag on All Things Linguistic — Just the funny stuff
We've been doing lingcomm since 2011 and we're astounded by how many more pop linguistics resources have come into existences since we started and how many difficult decisions we had to make to get it down to just 101 places
If you’re more on the lingcomm creator side, check out the lingcomm website — we'd love to hang out with you at the LingComm Conference (it's online!).
Many thanks to the people who filled out the Lingthusiasm survey over the past 3 years for suggesting over 1000 places where you get enthusiastic about linguistics! Please feel free to highlight your favourites from this list or add further suggestions for the benefit of other people reading!
Here's your back-to-school list of resources for nerding out about linguistics, whether you're currently enrolled anywhere or not!
