Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Linguistics Behind the Scenes join linguistics professor Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer and linguistics enthusiast Dominic Piazza on a backstage tour of linguistic research. (transcripts for all episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

When Languages Meet A podcast miniseries for people interested in languages and multilingualism. From MultiBridge.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Now An interview podcast from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

The Language Neuroscience Podcast Neuroscientist Stephen Wilson talks with leading and up-and-coming researchers. For an academic audience. (Transcripts for all episodes).

Writing Wrongs Historic and contemporary forensic linguistic cases, from Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics.

Stories of Languages and Linguistics Created by students at Georgia Tech as part of their learning. Short episodes. 

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Hear us out! The science of second language listening from the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Words Unravelled Rob Watts (aka RobWords) and Jess Zafarris unravel the stories behind everyday terms. 

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno. 

Mexendo com a Língua A Spanish language podcast about linguistics, literature, culture, and more from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the Federal University of São Carlos.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Spanish language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Saussure e grida An Italian language podcast about linguistics from Irene Lami.

Ma langue maternelle n'est pas la langue de ma mère a French language podcast about the diversity of languages.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.

Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.

Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.

The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)

Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.

The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.

Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.

Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)

Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)

Linguistics with Laura: 14 episodes from 2020/2021using the An Introduction To Language (Fromkin et al.) textbook as a basis. 

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.

Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)

LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)

Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.

Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.

Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.

Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.

The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.

Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)

Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.

WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)

Sage Language and Linguistics

Let’s Talk Talk

Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe

GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.

Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.

Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 

Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.

Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.

Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.

Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.

People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. Until now I’ve mostly cited a 1998 paper from Jana Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow that analysed the gestures and speech of young blind people. Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus.

Blind people will even gesture when talking to other blind people, and sighted people will gesture when speaking on the phone - so we know that people don’t only gesture when they speak to someone who can see their gestures.

Earlier this year a new paper came out that adds to this story. Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow looked at the gestures of blind speakers of Turkish and English, to see if the *way* they gestured was different to sighted speakers of those languages. Some of the sighted speakers were blindfolded and others left able to see their conversation partner.

Turkish and English were chosen, because it has already been established that speakers of those languages consistently gesture differently when talking about videos of items moving. English speakers will be more likely to show the manner (e.g. ‘rolling’ or bouncing’) and trajectory (e.g. ‘left to right’, ‘downwards’) together in one gesture, and Turkish speakers will show these features as two separate gestures. This reflects the fact that English ‘roll down’ is one verbal clause, while in Turkish the equivalent would be yuvarlanarak iniyor, which translates as two verbs ‘rolling descending’.

Since we know that blind people do gesture, Özçalışkan’s team wanted to figure out if they gestured like other speakers of their language. Did the blind Turkish speakers separate the manner and trajectory of their gestures like their verbs? Did English speakers combine them? Of course, the standard methodology of showing videos wouldn’t work with blind participants, so the researchers built three dimensional models of events for people to feel before they discussed them.

The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers.

References

Jana M. Iverson & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1998. Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228-228.

Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2016. Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Psychological Science, 27(5) 737–747.

Eight years after this original study Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow have a sequel.

The original paper showed that blind and sighted people who speak the same language have similar gestures to represent events. These gestures can’t have been acquired through visual learning, so this was evidence that gesture and speech must be all bound up together in the brain. But there was still a question about how deeply they’re tied together. Perhaps this was something that adults settled into as they got older.

In this new paper, Özçalışkan and team looked at the speech and gesture of blind and sighted Turkish children between the ages of five and ten years old. They used the same methods and targeted the same kind of action verbs and gestures. It’s worth checking out the paper for the frolicking doll dioramas they set up as part of the experiment.

Even the youngest children showed the same kind of gesture patterns as adult Turkish speakers. This means that these kinds of patterns are part of language learning and not something that gets added on top later in life. That is further evidence for the original argument that speech and gesture are a package deal.

It’s so great to see this team continuing to refine and support the original findings.

From the “research highlights” section of the paper:

Gestures, when produced with speech (i.e., co-speech gesture), follow language-specific patterns in event representation in both blind and sighted children.

Gestures, when produced without speech (i.e., silent gesture), do not follow the language-specific patterns in event representation in both blind and sighted children.

Language-specific patterns in speech and co-speech gestures are observable at the same time in blind and sighted children.

The cross-linguistic similarities in silent gestures begin slightly later in blind children than in sighted children.

Citation

this is another huge topic so I'm gonna err on the side of "these are just three really cool papers" rather than "this is representative of the entire linguistic field"

Riestenberg, Freemond, Lillehaugen, Washington. Prioritizing Community Partners’ Goals in Projects to Support Indigenous Language Revitalization. In: Decolonizing Linguistics. Ed. Anne H. Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, and Mary Bucholtz, Oxford University Press. doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197755259.003.0019, and the PDF is here.

Junker, M. O. (2018). Participatory action research for Indigenous linguistics in the digital age. Insights from practices in community-based research: From theory to practice around the globe, 164175. doi.org/10.1515/9783110527018-009, pdf on the author's website here.

Leonard, W. Y. (2021). Toward an anti‐racist linguistic anthropology: An Indigenous response to white supremacy. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 31(2), 218-237. pdf is here.

(TBH you could just sit down and read the entire Decolonizing Linguistics book, it's like 500 pages/20 chapters by a huge community of authors. It's open access!)

[link]

I mean look at this thing:

Like, every post about them on tumblr going “lmao let’s be real, if I saw this shit I would stop at nothing to explore it” is highlighting the central conceit of the yucca mountain project.

The project is VERY aware of humanity’s tendency to explore, and the people involved are tormented constantly by the fact that ANYTHING they do to indicate “this specific place is extremely deadly and there’s nothing valuable here, GO AWAY” is going to become a fucking MAGNET for treasure hunters, explorers, adventurers, mystery enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists…like, the MOMENT it’s discovered, people will flood that place.

That’s what makes the project so fascinatingly difficult! There’s so much they have to convey, but at the same time, they have to do so without making the site itself interesting in any way, and without making it significant. Many possible warnings don’t incorporate a message at all, focusing instead on simply making the site as ugly, inconvenient, and unimportant-looking as possible so that it’s just never disturbed because nobody is interested in getting close. (It’s why seemingly crazy ideas like the color-changing cat priesthood are actually more viable than the seemingly “practical” example above, which still depends on written warnings guaranteed to be extremely interesting to future humans AND depends on the idea that those future humans will be able to decipher any of our languages. The most viable ideas focus on exploiting superstition and the subconscious, rather than LITERALLY trying to communicate “This place is not a place of honor” etc in as many words. Those are general ideas to be gotten across, not a script.)

The impossible catch-22 of the nuclear waste warning projects is that they absolutely MUST communicate the level of danger and the importance of keeping your distance…while also being acutely aware that warnings on the walls of ancient burial sites about the horrible curses that would afflict anyone who disturbed them did jack-fuck all to dissuade archaeologists.

* This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off or still smoking.

@mrchicsaraleo @britomartis @el-shab-hussein @paintedwiththecolorsofthewind @stephanemiroux

this is vile

STANDING ROCK INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. — Ray Taken Alive had been fighting for this moment for two years: At his urging, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council was about to take the rare and severe step of banishing a nonprofit organization from the tribe’s land.

The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary and textbooks.

But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials, which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form of textbooks. 

This isn’t about books. This is about an organization founded and led by two white men using the work of indigenous peoples to create resources for their endangered languages and then not giving those people access to those resources. It’s about them literally copywriting the words of Elders and other indigenous people and refusing to let their tribes use them.

People are fighting to have access to the recordings that deceased loved ones gave to this organization and being denied because those recordings are copywrited. These men are literally taking aspects of these communities and saying, “these are ours now, no one else can use them, not even the people who shared them with us.”

And it’s not just one or two people who have issues with this. It’s not just one tribe. It’s multiple accounts of this organization and its founders violating the boundaries of both individuals and tribes and taking what wasn’t theirs to take.

He is a little less than 50% of his $50,000 goal to fund his legal fees if anyone can donate here.

der Adrenalinschub -- adrenaline rush die Eintönigkeit -- monotony das Panzerband -- duct tape der Schnitzer (pl. die Schnitzer) -- blunder; slip-up

besudeln -- to sully; to stain rülpsen -- to burp stutzen -- to stop short verputzen -- to plaster

geringfügig -- slight; minor höhnisch -- scornful obendrein -- as well; to boot vollbracht -- accomplished

It’s called “Masculino como el amor, femenino como la espada”

Si tienes que usar el masculino conmigo, usa el masculino cómo lo usas para el azúcar para el lobo el amor y el mar. Pero si tienes que usar el femenino, úsalo cómo lo usas para la tierra para la anaconda la guerra y la mar. Llámame masculino cómo el día cómo el melocotón el pecho y el cometa. O, llámame femenino cómo la noche cómo la piedra la leche y la mano. Masculino cómo el viento, femenino cómo la tormenta. El hueso, la sangre. El mito, la magia. El sol, la luna. Si tienes que usar el masculino conmigo, o si tienes que usar el femenino, llámame femenino con la boca y la lengua o llámame masculino con los dientes y los pulmones. O si puedes llámame por mi nombre. Llámame yo.

Translation: Masculine like love, feminine like the sword

Here are the absolute basics of the language in an even tighter package compared to my earlier posts. Maybe someone new will take interest in the language from these posts!

To my existing followers, are these kinds of posts good for you? Could my normal posts be in this format sometimes too?

I will try to update this post with every new addition to hopefully make a comprehensive list of Tumblr regional communities

The list so far:

Europe

• Czech

#česky, #hezky česky - general Czech language posts, frequently featuring user-written poetry, art, sometimes politics and current events, warning: often contains vent posts

#čumblr - Czech but frequently used by Slovaks as well, primarily memes and fandom things, shipping, art, cultural things, frequently overlaps with #česky

#obrození, #obrozujeme - memes and fandoms as well but with more emphasis of maintaining and developing Czech culture, is a mostly humorous parody/self-proclaimed continuation of the Czech National Revival of the 1800s, overlaps with #čumblr and #česky

• Slovak

#slovensky - general Slovak language posts

#slumblr, #sumblr, NEW - #ťumbľr - Slovak, general posts, memes, fandom and culture things, sometimes overlaps with #čumblr

• Polish

#polska, #polish - Polish, general posts, art, politics and current events

#polblr, #polishposting, #polskie rzeczy - Polish, more humorous general posts and memes, often overlap with the above

• Ukrainian

#ukraine - general Ukrainian posts, often in English

#укртумбочка - mostly used by artists

• General Slavic

#slav, #slavic, #slavposting, #slavic stuff - mixed Slavic, usually cultural things, memes, art and photography, sometimes politics, sometimes visited by other East Europeans

• Irish

#gaeilge - Irish, general posting but especially cultural things and memes, often features posts for language learning

• Welsh

#cymraeg - general Welsh posting, memes

• Romanian

#romanian - general Romanian tag

#romanisme, #vlandom - Romanian, mostly memes and humor

• Hungarian

#magyar, #hungarian, #tumbli - Hungarian language, mostly quotes

• Finnish

#suomitumblr, #suomitumppu, #suomipaskaa, #suomeksi, other variations beginning with suomi - general (shit)posting

any and all swear words such as #perkele, #vittu, #saatana, #helvetti and #paska - shitposts, overlap with above

• Dutch

#dutch, #the netherlands, #netherlands, #holland, #nederland, #nederlands - general Dutch posts

#nedermemes, #dutchcore - memes, shitposting

• German

#deutsch, #german stuff - general German posting

#BundesTag - memes and humor

blogs like @official-deutschebahn, @official-german-medienlandschaft and other official-deutsche- blogs, "because THE joke of German tumblr is to act like an overly bureucratic public institution"

• Swedish

#sweblr, #swedenposting, #svea rike - memes, shitposts, fandom stuff, sometimes political

#svenskt, #sverige - general Swedish stuff

#all makt åt tengil vår befriare, #sa du sten - used mostly by @svenskjavel

#borås - posts and memes about the city, "kinda like Swedish Ohio"

#lesbisk, #bög, #bisexuell, #pansexuell, #hbtq+, #hbtq, #homosexuell, #asexuell - Swedish queer tags

• French

#upthebaguette, #french side of tumblr, #whatthefrance - general French posting but especially memes, comics, art

#bagaitte - French queer posting

• Greek

#greek tumblr, #ελληνικα, #ελλαδα, #γρεεκ, #ελληνικο ταμπλρ - general stuff

#greek memes - memes

Catalan

#coses de la terra - general stuff

Belarusian

#беларускі тамблер - general stuff, fandoms

#артшляхта - art

Italian

#itablr - general stuff, not very populated yet

Estonian

#eestiblr, #eesti - general stuff

@unofficial-estonia - blog

Danish

@useless-denmarkfacts - blog

Asia

• South Asian

#desiblr, #desi, #desi tag - general South Asia posting, memes, humor, sometimes also used by Arab people

• Indian

#dabara tumblr, #தம்பிளர் - suggested tags for South India

Russian

#русский тамблер, #русский tumblr - general stuff, memes

Sri Lankan

#අරගලයට ජය, suggested tags LKA or #Lankablr if anyone's interested

Indonesian

@useless-indonesiafacts - blog

Israeli

#ישראבלר

Oceania

Australian

#auscore - general stuff, culture, memes and shitposts

#auspol - politics

Not location-specific

Jewish

#jumblr, #frumblr - general stuff, history, discussions, posts mostly in English

Romani

#romani, #rroma, #rrumblr - romani sides of tumblr, general stuff, history, discussions, mostly in English

Please share around wherever you're from, US American local cultures are welcome as well, especially indigenous (though that should go without saying)

Now, looking at my data and looking at the age ranges of the writers or speakers, the majority of them were under the age of thirty. So I interviewed a panel of people, choosing twenty with a spread of about half above thirty, and half below. Those older than thirty years of age felt "strongly" or "very strongly" that "on accident" was wrong in all cases, and that "by accident" was the only correct phrase. However, those younger than thirty were much less rigorous, with more than half feeling "ambivalent" or "less strongly" about which was correct. This demonstrates a generational link in preposition usage.

When presented with options for the definitions of "by" and "on," we also get some interesting data. For by, there are two main definitions according to the Oxford English Dictionary: 1. Identifying the agent performing an action. Or 2. Indicating the means of achieving something. Whereas "on" has many more definitions, the pertinent ones being 1. To indicate the manner of doing something or 2. To indicate active involvement in a condition or status. By the above definitions, either "by accident" or "on accident" is a correct usage of the term. However, native speakers of English could not successfully define either preposition, instead just choosing one, the other, or both as "sounding correct."

The only evidence for a rule-based shift that I could find was a correlation with the paired phrase for the opposite condition "on purpose." While the younger interviewees were ambivalent about the correctness of "on accident," they uniformly rejected the correctness of the suggested phrase "by purpose." So the shift can only be in one direction according the the native ear, towards the preposition "on."

Whether this means that the particular usage of "by" is becoming archaic or the definition of "on" is expanding is a possible subject of further study using a wider range of phrases. But I found the wider acceptance of "on accident" versus "by accident" to be a fascinating look at how prepositions can shift meaning and usage over time.

So now I'm curious, five years from my initial study (and itching to try the Tumblr poll feature):