The following podcast contains explicit language.

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

I'm John McWhorter, and our topic this time is going to be something that I've always assumed I didn't episode about,

but apparently I haven't.

It's something that I think any of you who like this podcast would like to know and probably need to know.

We need to explore the whole concept of dialect.

People often ask, what is the difference between a language and a dialect?

It's a very messy question to which there really is no answer.

It's one of those things.

Nevertheless, we all have certain folk conceptions of what distinguishes a language from a dialect, including linguists.

I certainly have a sense of what a dialect is as opposed to a language, despite that I know formally that the whole question is ultimately meaningless.

But from what we're taught, the world has a whole bunch of languages and then also a whole bunch of dialects.

And we have a sense that there are dialects of a language, but where do you draw the line?

What are we talking about?

What is the technical truth?

Hey, drag fans, please listen up.

I'm Alaska.

And my name is Willem.

And we are the hosts of Race Chaser.

The premiere and preeminent RuPaul's Drag Race recap podcast.

And if you aren't listening to this podcasting behemothiad, start right now.

Because it's 2023 and we have weekly coverage of the all new episodes from the season 15 of RuPaul's Drag Race.

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