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
andulkaphoto
areudirty
titsay
prguitarman
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
amandla
dailybridgerton
