Subtitle

As 20-year-old Olga Janáčková lay dying from typhoid fever, her father wrote down everything she said. Later, he transformed those words—and gasps—into music. The grieving father, Czech composer Leoš Janáček, called the ultra-short musical pieces "speech melodies." In this episode, language writer Michael Erard invites cellist Petronella Torin to play Olga's speech melodies. NYU's Michael Beckerman describes the controversy surrounding them. This is among countless ways that loved ones have memorialized the final words of the dying. Michael Erard tells the stories of many of them in his new book, Bye Bye I Love You [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/771630/bye-bye-i-love-you-by-michael-erard/]. Music in this episode by Magnus Ludvigsson, Medité, Dream Cave, Nylonia, Alexandra Woodward, Cobby Costa, August Wilhelmsson, David Celeste, Martin Landstrom, Gavin Luke, Rand Also, Airae, Alan Ellis, Jules Gaia, Trabant 33, and Leoš Janáček. More about cellist Petronella Torin here [https://swedishcellist.com/]. The photo (via Wikimedia Commons) shows Olga Janáčková, daughter of the Czech composer Leoš Janáček, not long before her death from typhoid fever. Read a transcript of this episode here [https://subtitlepod-62956.medium.com/how-czech-composer-leo%C5%A1-jan%C3%A1%C4%8Dek-set-his-dying-daughters-last-words-to-music-6eef0ceac136]. Subscribe to our newsletter here [https://subtitlepod.com/newsletter/].

Some Icelanders are becoming unsettled by this existential question: Will their language still be spoken in the future? Comedian and former Reykjavik mayor Jón Gnarr is convinced that this uniquely archaic-yet-modern language will one day die out. He says his children express themselves beautifully in English but speak limited Icelandic. Give it a couple more generations, and who knows? For Gnarr and many others, speaking Icelandic is an essential part of being Icelandic. Without the language, Iceland's patriotic anthem "Land, Nation and Tongue" would lose its meaning. Among Iceland's multitude of avid book-readers though, the language is showing few signs of disappearing. For now at least, Icelandic authors are committed to writing in their mother tongue. This is part two of our reporting on Icelandic. Listen to the first part, Icelandic, the language that recycles everything. [https://subtitlepod.com/icelandic-the-language-that-recycles-everything/] In addition to Jón Gnarr [https://www.instagram.com/jongnarr/?hl=en], we hear from novelists Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir [https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5584054.Au_ur_Ava_lafsd_ttir] and Sverrir Norland [https://www.sverrirnorland.com/], as well as literary translator Larissa Kyzer [https://www.larissakyzer.com/], linguist Ari Páll Kristinsson [https://www.arnastofnun.is/is/stofnunin/starfsfolk/ari-pall-kristinsson], and Ethiopian-born restaurant owner Azeb Kahssay [https://www.ferdalag.is/en/service/minilik-ethiopean-restaurant]. Music in this episode by Luella Gren, Hysics, Medité, Farrell Wooten, J.S. Bach/Eric Jacobsen, Jon Björk, and Trabant 33. The photo is of a poster in Reykjavik celebrating the Icelandic language. Read a transcript of the episode here [https://subtitlepod-62956.medium.com/will-icelanders-one-day-ditch-their-mother-tongue-for-english-cc653a9a175f]. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly newsletter here [https://subtitlepod.com/newsletter/].

Many place names in the United States are borrowed from Native American words. It's often hard to trace the roots. Over time, the original names were often transformed beyond recognition, victims of mangled pronunciation. Suzanne Hogan is our guide to the origins of Missouri, a name rooted in the Chiwere language. Chiwere has been imperiled for generations but kept alive by the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, and by one tribe member in particular: Truman Washington Dailey, a pioneer of North American language revitalization. Suzanne Hogan is the host of the podcast, A People's History of Kansas City [https://www.kcur.org/a-peoples-history-of-kansas-city]. Read more about this episode here [https://www.kcur.org/history/2021-04-25/a-native-american-tribe-gave-missouri-its-name-now-its-descendants-are-preserving-a-fading-language], and more about the Otoe-Missouria Tribe here [https://www.omtribe.org]. A People's History of Kansas City is supported by the Midwest Genealogy Center [https://www.mymcpl.org/genealogy] in Independence, Missouri. Music in this episode courtesy of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. Other music by Gunnar Johnsen, Blue Dot Sessions, Medité, and Trabant 33. The photo shows a delegation of the Otoe-Missouria tribe in 1881. (Credit: John K. Hillers / Gilman Collection, Metropolitan Museum Of Art.)  Sign up for Subtitle’s fortnightly newsletter here [https://subtitlepod.com/newsletter/].

In this episode, we're handing over the reins to the podcast series, Home, Interrupted, produced by Feet in 2 Worlds. The series explores how the climate crisis affects immigrants across the U.S., and how immigrant communities are finding new ways to deal with a warming planet. In this episode, reporter Allison Salerno tells the stories of migrant farmworkers in Florida who face increasingly hazardous conditions. State lawmakers have blocked legislation to protect them, so farmworkers are now seeking help from outside groups who are donating ice packs, cooling bandanas, water with electrolytes and other things to help keep them alive. More on this episode here [https://www.fi2w.org/harvest-of-shame-deadly-heat-edition-home-interrupted], and on the Home, Interrupted series here [https://www.fi2w.org/home-interrupted/]. The photo of Elena Contreras and her mother Mirella Contreras, a former migrant farmworker who now is an organizer for the Farmworker Association of Florida, is by Allison Salerno. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly newsletter here [https://subtitlepod.com/newsletter/].

Icelanders are protective of their language. When a new piece of tech or a new disease emerges, people debate what to call these things in Icelandic. New words must sound and look Icelandic, otherwise they may not survive. The country's Knitting Words Committee is one of dozens of community panels charged with proposing new words. Typically, they repurpose old words that have fallen out of use. Who doesn't want to revive a word or phrase from Iceland's sagas? In this episode, we take you to Iceland to discover how, seemingly, an entire nation has coalesced around the maxim, "We have a very good old word for that."  Music in this episode by Taomito, Silver Maple, pär, Medité, Nathan Welch, and Trabant 33. Photo of Hulda Hákonardóttir and Guðrún Hannele Henttinen of Iceland's Knitting Words Committee by Patrick Cox. Read a transcript of the episode here [https://subtitlepod-62956.medium.com/while-americans-love-to-invent-words-to-describe-new-things-icelanders-repurpose-ancient-words-acaec749258b]. And sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy, fortnightly newsletter here [https://subtitlepod.com/newsletter/].