John McWhorter Describes Human Language's 20,...

In America’s first hundred years, the animal you were most likely to see was a passenger pigeon. And you saw a lot of them. Flocks were so numerous they literally blotted out the sun for days and their combined weight snapped the branches of entire forests where they roosted. Yet ...  Show more

Europe's borders in the Middle Ages were created by one man, and he wasn't even born in the Middle Ages, nor was he Christian. It was Emperor Diocletian, who ruled Rome from 284 to 305. His reforms that chained tenant farmers to land created the blueprint for feudalism. He split ...  Show more

Does language shape the way we perceive reality? Can Indigenous wisdom shine a light on a different way forward??! RESOURCES MENTIONED: - Lingthusiasm- The Hatred of Metaphor- Briana Ní Loingsigh's Substack- WordsatWork Tiktok- The Balkanization and Babelification of the Internet ...  Show more

Around the world, 2.3 billion people speak English, and for most of them it is an extra, rather than their first, language.

In many countries, English is also used to teach most academic subjects at schools and universities – even where most of the populatio ...

My guest today is someone who I believe, without exaggeration, will help transform the way people learn ancient languages for years to come. While our institutional academies crumble, a new academy is quietly emerging in independent organizations like the Ancient Language Institu ...  Show more

Why modern communication still relies on ancient words and narratives.All communication and connection depend on one thing: language. That’s why Laura Spinney says understanding language — where it comes from and how it evolves over time — can help us use it more effectively.“Lan ...  Show more