For the Love of Language

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra! We discuss Star Trek's Tamarian encounter and how Captain Picard learns how to communicate using the Tamarians' historical metaphors.

Breaking everything into little boxes. And EJ's dog definitely wanted to be a part of the show.

We discuss the fantastic episode of Bluey where the mom asks the family to say "toilet" instead of "dunny."

You can find Dunny if you watch Bluey on Disney+.

Can we define poetry? What makes good poetry? How do you find your voice? Do you have a poem inside you? Is AI ruining poetry? And, Stacie shares her "Ode to Pizza."

Joshua recommends A Poet's Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie and "Picnic, Lightning" by Billy Collins.

We talk about different aspects of body language and give some examples of body languages across cultures.

EJ recommends reading What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro, and The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease.

We discuss ideas from the study Does bilingualism protect against dementia? A meta-analysis by John A. E. Anderson, Kornelia Hawrylewicz, and John G. Grundy. Find the study at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32462636/ .

A syntax discussion! What is merge? Is language actually special at all, or just one of a billion instances of merge in the human experience?

Stacie references the book Merge in the Mind-Brain: Essays on Theoretical Linguistics and the Neuroscience of Language by Naoki Fukui.

We talk about working with teams, note-taking, the value of networking, and building connections by asking questions.

How do langauges become international? How do widely spoken languages impact minority ones? What would it take for Icelandic to become a lingua franca?

We discuss markedness, with a brief foray into phonetics. Stacie references the 1986 book Markedness, edited by Fred R. Eckman, Edith A. Moravcsik, and Jessica R. Wirth.