Subtitle

Digital consultant Ivanka Majic was such an early user of Twitter that she was able to snag the handle @Ivanka. Which was great, until the rise of another Ivanka caused confusion. Many Twitter users— including the other Ivanka's father— mistook one for the other. In this archive episode, Ivanka Majic tells the story of her brush with fame, and how the name she was innocently given at birth has aff...

In our upcoming season, we have stories on notorious names, the future of Braille, a history of alphabetical order and much more. Look out the first episode with Patrick and Kavita on March 17. Subtitle is produced by Quiet Juice and the Linguistic Society of America. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Photo by Patrick Cox. Patrick's dog, Louis, is working on coming up with the right words to tell his st...

Here's a guest episode from our friends at A Better Life?, a podcast from Feet in 2 Worlds about the immigrant experience in the time of COVID-19. The episode follows two US-based immigrants. Heeja, born in South Korea, and Elsa, born in Mexico, both wrestle with the same question: "Should I stay or should I go?" Music in this episode by Fareed Sajan. The photo of Heeja and her children Jeff...

Tina Tobey was born and raised in Texas. She's used to non-Texans expecting her to know all about oil-drilling and ranching. And of course to speak "like a Texan." While she barely meets those expectations, Tina has come to realize that she speaks more Texas English than she thought. Also in this episode: how difficult is it to win an accent bias lawsuit? And to overcome our own accent biases? Thi...

Why doesn't Ciku Theuri sound Black? Her friends wanted to know. Eventually, she wanted to know. Ciku tells the story of how she came to speak the way she does—and how others, from Ohio to Kenya, perceive her speech. (Spoiler alert: she does sound Black.) Also in this episode: why many Americans choose the voices of Black celebrities for their digital assistants. This is the third in our four-part...

Verónica Zaragovia lives in Miami but she was born in Colombia. Although she has a Colombian passport, her Spanish doesn't sound Colombian— at least that's what people tell her. During a recent stay in Bogotá, she decided to change that: she took lessons in Colombian Spanish. Along the way, she gained a new understanding of how language and identity interact. This is the second in our four-part se...

We are how we speak, right? Well, it's complicated— enough so to spend Subtitle's next four episodes on this question. We'll tell the stories of a diverse collection of people, tracing how each came to speak the way they do. Along the way, we'll ask: Is speech a good barometer of identity? Does anyone truly speak authentically? Why are we so judgmental about how others speak? And how can we o...

In 1986, Nicaraguan officials invited American linguist Judy Shepard-Kegl to observe a group of Deaf children. The kids were using an unrecognizable signing system. Over the following years, Shepard-Kegl and other linguists found themselves uniquely placed to observe what they came to realize was the emergence of a new language. Today, Nicaraguan Sign Language has its own complex grammar and a bro...

Finland has been named the happiest country in the world. So why is  sisu  the word that best describes Finns? Associated with war and endurance, s isu  means stoic perseverance against almost insurmountable odds. But this small, cold nation is changing, as is the meaning of  sisu . In these tumultuous times, this short Finnish word may have something to offer the res...

In unsettled times, we reach for metaphors. They help us make sense of the nonsensical—or at least that's what we tell ourselves. In this episode, we hear from linguist Elena Semino, editor of a crowd-sourced publication called the Metaphor Menu intended for people with cancer. She assesses the merits of coronavirus metaphors, from battlefield clichés to forest fires to contaminated swimming pools...

Joe Wong is a brilliant bilingual comedian. In the US, he does standup. In his native China he hosts a popular TV game show. Recently his comedy has become more political: he is confronting US racial tensions head-on. In quarantine, Joe is writing a book, cooking for his son (to his son's dismay), and decrying virus-related anti-Asian hate crimes. Music in this episode by Podington Bear, Blue Dot...

Bilingual comedian Joanna Hausmann (pictured with her mother Ana Julia Jatar-Hausmann) is sitting out the lockdown at her Venezuelan parents' New England home. She tells us of her love of outdated Venezuelan slang; also about parenting her parents (in both Spanish and English); and how the restrictions of quarantine are unleashing her creative instincts. Photo by Joanna Hausmann. Music by Podingto...

In this episode, we talk with American medical student Esther Kim (pictured). She's trying to overcome her suspicion of people with a particular accent, one that she's come to associate with racist taunts. The COVID-19 wave of anti-Asian harassment has made things worse. Also, Stanford professor Seema Yasmin tells us why pandemics bring out the language of war. Photo by Esther Kim. Music by Bonnie...

We can't travel. We can't hug or visit loved ones. But we can talk our way through this pandemic — and we're doing just that, in most of the world's languages. In this episode we hear from Kavita Pillay's mother, who tells a story from her childhood in southern India. And a filmmaker in New York talks about her home quarantine activity, translating Russian video footage full of phrases from the pa...

Hassnae Bouazza was born in Morocco. She didn't speak a word of Dutch when she immigrated to the Netherlands, though today it's effectively her mother tongue. The Dutch government now insists that would-be immigrants like Bouazza pass a Dutch language "entrance exam." Are Dutch officials using language to keep "undesirables" out? Or is speaking the local language an essential part of living in the...

If there are extraterrestrials out there, what kind of messages might they be sending us? How might we decipher those messages? And should we hit reply? Image by Mike Licht via Flickr Creative Commons. Music by Million Eyes, From Now On, Heath Cantu, Christian Andersen, Podington Bear. Read a transcript of this episode here .

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina displaced tens of thousands of New Orleanians. Many never returned to the city. Others have since moved in, bringing with them different languages and dialects. Some locals now wonder if they have lost 'ownership' of New Orleans English. Has the linguistic footprint of one of America’s most historically rich and diverse cities changed forever? Read a transcript of this e...

In folklore and fiction there's a rich tradition of trees that talk, from Greek mythology to The Wizard of Oz. But that's make-believe, right? Well, maybe. Many ecologists now believe that trees are in constant communication with their surroundings. Linguists may roll their eyes at claims of ‘talk,’ or ‘language.’ But observing how trees interact helps us understand the limits of language. Photo b...

Susanna Zaraysky, speaker of nine languages, is one of those people who seem able to pick up French or Portuguese almost overnight. In reality, it's not so effortless—but is she cognitively predisposed to attaining fluency in so many languages? We follow her to an MIT lab where researchers put her through a series of tests. Photo by Patrick Cox. Music by Silver Maple, Lucention, Pause For Concern,...

Stereotypes about Mormon missionaries tend to overshadow their great success in foreign language learning. Why is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so skilled at teaching languages? We hear from missionaries, teachers and scholars, in Utah and Finland. Photo by Kavita Pillay. Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Booker and the Yeomans and Podington Bear. Read a transcript of this episode here...

There's a new language class on offer at Harvard. Gullah Geechee is a creole language developed by enslaved Africans and still spoken today. As far as anyone knows, it's the first time it's been taught anywhere. Sunn M'Cheaux — native speaker turned Harvard instructor — tells his story and the story of Gullah Geechee, a language that is as African as it is American. Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Pod...

'Real’ or ’synthetic’? 'Authentic' or ‘lab-grown’? 'Bloodstained' or ‘green’? The highly-regulated words that describe diamonds define their narrative — and maybe even their value. We take you to New York’s Diamond District to meet some of its most engaging characters as they struggle to come to terms with the new lexicon of diamonds. Music in this episode by Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions....

Are you repelled by certain words? Do you get that fingernails-on-chalkboard feeling when someone says 'moist,' 'dollop' or 'fascia'? In this week's episode Kavita Pillay, who has some word aversions of her own, seeks answers from linguists who study this phenomenon. Music in the podcast by Podington Bear, Kikoru and Blue Dot Sessions. Photo by Sauli Pillay. Read a transcript of this episode here...

Want to say or write something anonymously? Or pretend you're someone else? Good luck. Linguists like Robert Leonard of Hofstra University are using evermore sophisticated means to figure out who you really are. In this episode we trace the rise of forensic linguistics, from identifying the Unabomber to the case of the Trump Administration's 'lodestar' insider. Read more about forensic linguist Ro...

Coming up in the first season of Subtitle with Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay: Words we love and hate. Words that solve crimes. Words we lose and find. Words that resist translation. Subtitle brings you stories about languages and the people who speak them, starting in November 2019.