How to lose a language in three generations: an introduction to language shift

How to lose a language in three generations: an introduction to language shift

Why do grandchildren always seem to answer in the wrong language? Can a language lose a popularity contest? And is language shift just rebranding with better marketing? Tune into this episode to find out!

The language remix: an introduction to pidgins and creoles

Could you survive an Arctic trading expedition armed with twenty words and your creativity? When is a pidgin fully fledged? And how can you accidentally invent a language? Tune into today's episode to find out!

A double take on contact phenomena: an introduction to code-switching

Do you ever start a sentence in one language and terminarla en otra? Would you like to learn a cunning way to make people think you're bilingual? And the ancient grammarians are back! Tune in da learn bagaimana multilingual speakers miksaju i matchaju on a daily basis!

Grammar on the move: an introduction to syntactic borrowing

Do you know your Balkans from your Baltic? Does that preposition have a passport? And how did the Normans get their own back on us for borrowing so many of their words? Tune into this episode on syntactic borrowing to find out about structural borrowing and convergence!

Finders keepers: an introduction to lexical borrowing

Take a siesta from your schedule, hit the sofa in your pyjamas and rendezvous for a linguistic smorgasbord of loan words! Tune in to this episode to find out why and how we borrow words and where borrowing fits in to a more sinister picture!