From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter and you know, let's begin with this song, which is from the Broadway

musical promises, promises, but it was cut.

It's very catchy and very apropos for our topic today.

This is called TikTok.

It's very, just for single girls.

And single girls are what we are.

TikTok goes the clock.

TikTok goes the clock with every single set of each day.

The time we're getting married is passing.

Look how it's slipping away.

Like the lovely business slipping.

Why TikTok other than that's just very infectious because it sounds to me kind of like the genetic

clock.

The genetic clock that scientists are learning so much about these days and how it relates

to language specifically, language families, specifically telling us how language families

got to be where they were, what relationships are, between different languages.

Like analysis is teaching us so much about those things and in a virtual flood of information

over just the past five to ten years.

And I wanted to share some of that on this show, but first just by way of review, what

is it about genes that allows these kinds of conclusions?

Well, DNA is something where I guess you can listen to different podcasts to learn exactly

...