38: Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more

Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne

Science

4.8 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In English you have one book, and three books. In Arabic you have one kitaab, and three kutub. In Nepali it’s one kitab, and three kitabharu, but sometimes it’s three kitab. In this episode of Lingthusiasm, Gretchen and Lauren look at the many ways that languages talk about how many of something there are, ranging from common distinctions like singular, plural, and dual, to more typologically rare forms like the trial, the paucal, and the associative plural. (And the mysterious absence of the quadral, cross-linguistically!) It’s also our anniversary episode! We’re celebrating three years of Lingthusiasm by asking you to share your favourite fact you’ve learnt from the podcast. Share it on social media and tag @lingthusiasm if you’d like us to reshare it for other people, or just send it directly to someone who you think needs a little more linguistics in their life. This month’s bonus episode was about reading fiction as a linguist! Check out our favourite recs for linguistically interesting fiction and get access to 30+ additional episodes if you’ve run out of lingthusiasm to listen to, by becoming a member on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm For links and more go to https://lingthusiasm.com/post/189218282891/lingthusiasm-episode-38-many-ways-to-talk-about

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Lincthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. I'm Lauren Gorn.
0:23.1	And I'm Gretchen McCulloch. And today we're getting enthusiastic about plurals. But first, it's our anniversary.
0:30.1	Every year in November, we celebrate another year of enthusiastic linguistics podcasting. And this year, we are celebrating by asking you to share your
0:41.6	favorite fact about linguistics that you learned from Lengthusiasm. So if there's a story or a fact
0:46.7	or an anecdote that you find yourself retelling to people saying, hey, I learned it from this podcast,
0:51.0	tell that to people on social media. We've been having so much fun seeing your
0:54.7	responses already. Keep doing it till the end of November and help us celebrate our third
0:58.7	anniversary. And we will reshare them and you can find other peoples as well to share yourself.
1:03.5	Most people still find podcasts from recommendations from trusted friends and acquaintances.
1:09.5	So sharing your enthusiasm for linguistics with people is the best way for the show to find new ears.
1:16.6	This month's bonus episode is all about reading fiction like a linguist. A bit like podcasts, I get a lot of my fiction reading suggestions from you, Gretchen, and we talk about what it's like to read fiction through the eyes of a linguist.
1:31.8	So all of the linguistically interesting angles and facts and aspects of the fiction we've been reading recently in this episode, we also have over 30 bonus episodes.
1:42.1	That's almost half the show. So if you've been looking for
1:44.7	more quality linguistics content in your life and you've listened to all the back episodes
1:48.1	of Lengthusiasm, there is more. We have a solution. You don't have to stop listening. You can get
1:53.6	access to these instead. Just go to patreon.com slash Linguism. And thanks for people who are already
1:59.1	supporting us for helping keep the show
2:00.9	going and ad-free. Not only can you read linguistics, see fiction, but you can also wear your
2:08.9	lingthusiasm with our new merch. You can wear lingthusiasm patterns, including the
2:14.2	international phonetic alphabet, the esoteric symbols, and the tree diagrams,
2:18.1	on your feet with the Newling-Ethusiasm socks.
2:20.5	You could have worn them on your feet with the scarf, but that would have been strange.
	...

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