Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 18: Williamsburg Poet Laureate talks character, community and spitting bars

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: July 18, 2025

Length: 36 minutes

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month

In this episode, a follow to Ep. 6 (June 2024) we catch up with Lacroy “Atlas” Nixon, a spoken word artist, slam performer and founder of the nonprofit Slam Connection. He’s the newly named inaugural poet laureate of Williamsburg, Va. 

In Ep. 6: Creative Community: Spoken Word in Hampton Roads, published a year ago in June 2024, we featured interviews with three of the region’s spoken word performers, Tanya Cunningham, George Mendez, and Nixon to showcase the genre and the local community.

Since then, Nixon has been named poet laureate for the City of Williamsburg. In this interview, (recorded on June 29, 2025, and lightly edited) we spoke to him about his new role which officially started this month. In it, he explains the process of becoming a poet laureate and says that the emphasis of his two-year post will be on engaging the area’s youth. 

Much of his work will involve pursuing partnerships with existing organizations, such as:

1. Slam Connection, (https://slamconnection.my.canva.site)

established by Nixon in 2022, has a mission of encouraging self-expression, healthy discourse and spitting bars (a term explained in Nixon’s interview), and empowering youth through spoken word poetry. It hosts open mic nights, slam contests, and writing events. It also involves a strong service component. 

2. The Ampersand International Arts Festival, www.ampersandfestival.com, an annual arts festival held in Williamsburg in March, “is part of the CIty of Williamsburg’s initiatives to support town and gown collaboration between the City, the College of William and Mary, Colonial Williamsburg, and partners.” 

3. 2nd Sundays, Williamsburg’s Art & Music Festival, https://2ndsundayswilliamsburg.com

4. The Poetry Society of Virginia, https://poetrysocietyofvirginia.org; a 100-year-old nonprofit dedicated to cultivating the writing and enjoyment of poetry.

5. Writers Guild of Virginia, https://www.writersguildva.com; Nixon is a board member of the nonprofit that offers classes, workshops and events for writers.

In the interview, Nixon references first Friday open mic nights at Column15 Cafe and Roastery, 701 Merrimac Trail R, Williamsburg; www.column15.com; and slam competitions at the Kimball Theatre, Duke of Gloucester Street, www.colonialwilliamsburg.org.

He also credits the location Bazaaro’s Deli in the Williamsburg Premium Outlets,  63A 5715 Richmond Rd, Williamsburg, www.bazaaros.com for hosting slam contests.

He also talks about competing in Southern Fried,www.southernfriedpoetryslam.com, one of the largest spoken word and performance poetry tournaments in the world. The event is held annually in a southern US city in the first week of June. Nixon’s team placed sixth in the 2025 competition in Knoxville, Tenn. 

Send your feedback, comments and questions to [email protected]. Also, check out our newly updated website, languaginghr.wordpress.com and engage with us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks to our summer interns, Kaitlyn Asato of Christopher Newport University and Sarah Phillips of Old Dominion University, for their work on the website and social media respectively. 

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 17: Third Culture Kids

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: June 13, 2025

Length: 26:10

In this episode of Languaging in Hampton Roads, co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky talk with Molly Dye (Williamsburg/Richmond), Jody Conibear Tangredi (Virginia Beach), and Sina Whitley (Newport News) about their experiences growing up globally as Third Culture Kids.

The term third culture kid (TCK) was coined by sociologist Ruth Useem in the 1950s, while she was studying the lives of Americans living and working in post-colonial India. While Useem was studying the cultural intersection of the professional lives of Indians and Americans, she noticed the unique situations of the children accompanying parents abroad.

Third culture kid experiences vary but, commonly, they grow up outside of their parents’ passport countries. Molly’s father worked for the U.S. State Department and her family lived in Switzerland and Spain; Sina’s parents taught for U.S. Department of Defense schools and her family lived in Cuba, Spain, England, and Japan; Jody’s father worked for the oil industry, and she lived in Iran, Indonesia, Australia, and Singapore.

Living in multiple countries as a child offers adventure and excitement. It also provides a way to experience different cultures and viewpoints during important formative years. Third culture kids can become very adaptable and commonly learn to understand many points of view. Jody, who not only is a third culture kid, but has also studied them, describes how TCK adaptability and ability to understand others' viewpoints makes them highly suitable for international careers.

While growing up as a TCK has its up sides, the loss that TCKs experience over the years often goes unacknowledged. Moving from place to place, repeatedly saying goodbye to friends and having to make new ones and having to readjust to new languages, cultures, and systems can add up. TCKs don’t always have permission or time to grieve their losses.

Here in Hampton Roads, with one of the largest military communities in the United States and with multiple international organizations and industries, including an international port, the third culture kid childhood likely hits home. Third culture experiences aren’t exclusive to moving from country to country. Children who move state to state with their parents’ jobs also have to adjust to new cultural systems and to different ways of interacting and speaking.

In this episode, we refer to a book: Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, by Ruth D van Reken, David C. Pollock, and Michael V. Pollock, Published: Nicholas Brealey America, 2009.

 Send feedback, questions, ideas for topics to [email protected]

We are grateful to Carlene Klein-Bennett, who researched the topic and developed a questionnaire for and reachedout to local TCKs.

Welcome to our summer interns: Sarah Phillips from ODU andKaitlyn Asato from CNU.

Original music is by Skye Zentz; Our Languaging logo is byPatty McDonald.

Languaging in Hampton Roads is written and produced by Prue Salasky and Jill Winkowski.

Languaging Episode 16: Notes

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 16 : How do you say Norfolk?

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: May 1, 2024

Length: 34 minutes

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday of each month

In this episode we finally get to the question that our listeners have been asking since Day 1: How do you say Norfolk?

Anecdotally, we discovered that everyone accepted “NAHfuk” as the old-time pronunciation with some retaining it as a way to connect with their city of residence. Increasingly, though, perhaps as part of the so-called cot/caught merger and Southern vowel shift, today’s speakers tend to use the “NORfuk” pronunciation. Both of those stress the first syllable with a reduction in the second syllable. There are others who stress the second syllable for a “NorFOLK” or “NorFORK” iteration.

We talked about vowels and reference the IPA vowel chart, https://www.ipachart.com/. We also mention linguist Penelope Eckert’s 1989 study, “Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in The High School.” It’s readily available from various sources online.

We had hoped to get a resolution on the matter of who says the city’s name in what way by consulting Tidewater Voices, an online archive of interviews of locals conducted (and ongoing) by linguistics students at Old Dominion University in Norfolk over more than two decades. That simply muddied the waters as we found old-timers using the more contemporary sounding "NORfuk" and Gen Zs using "NAHfuk." To listen for yourself, go to https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices/

We travelled the streets of Norfolk and invited those at signature locations – Norfolk Botanical Gardens, The Perry Glass Studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Nauticus, Visit Norfolk, The Mermaid Factory, Doumar’s Cones and Barbecue, and Norfolk Naval Station – to share their pronunciation of Norfolk along with information about their institution.

We consulted Dr. Janet Bing, PhD, a retired linguist from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, and a specialist in phonology, to share her expertise on the topic. She broke the name down phonetically but attributed its varying pronunciations to social forces.

Everyone agrees, though, that pronouncing the city’s name as "NAHfuk" places you in the local category.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for the Norfolk pronunciation variations: “NAHfuk” [‘na.fək], “NORfuk” [‘nɔr.fək], “NorFOLK” [nɔr’foʊk], “NorFORK” [nɔr’fɔrk].

Send your questions and feedback to [email protected].

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 14 - Bonus : Coastal Birds with Marlee Fuller

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: April 13, 2025

Length: 41

Publication Frequency: Occasional (bonus)

In this bonus content, we feature our interview with Marlee Fuller, a former nature guide at False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach. Not only has our guest worked at False Cape, but she has also worked on bird research on the Gulf Coast and with prairie chickens in Oklahoma.

Fuller describes the habits and sounds of our Hampton Roads resident bird the heron, as well as other shorebirds and songbirds that frequent the coastal habitats in our area. She describes the origins of some of the bird names. Did you know that the name of the whimbrel is named after the word whimper, which is similar to the bird's song?

Also in this interview is a recommendation for a bird name book called, interestingly, The Bird Name Book, published by Princeton University Press, as well as tips for introducing your children to birding.

Please add your comments to the podcast or send feedback to [email protected].

Title:  Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 15: A Day on the Marsh

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 31, 2025

Length: 30 min.

Publication Frequency: Monthly

In this episode of languagingHR, we look out on to one of the most iconic views in the Hampton Roads area, where the marsh meets the open water, while we explore the history of common words such as marsh and mud and heron and horizon that are used every day to describe our coastal surroundings. 

To help us on our word journey, we asked three local experts to join us: Dr. Steve Kuehl, Marlee Fuller, and Laura Lohse. 

Mud: As a marine geologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Steve Kuehl has spent his whole career studying sediment, or mud, primarily in deltaic systems, that is where rivers meet the sea. In this episode, he describes the why and how of studying mud. First and foremost, geochronology, studying the layers of sediment, allows us to learn about the history of our planet. By taking cores of mud and earth, we unearth, as it were, a record that spans millions of years. Marine scientists also study mud to learn more about our aquatic ecosystems. They measure benthic activity in, say, the York River to gauge the vitality of certain fish populations; they take cores in coastal areas to measure the patterns of buried carbon; and they study the resilience of the sedimentary activity in local marshes. 

Birds: With a background in evolutionary biology, Marlee Fuller has worked in bird research on clapper rails in Mississippi and prairie chickens in Oklahoma. She travels with her Coast Guard family and during her time in Hampton Roads, she was emersed, as a nature guide, in the local coastal and especially avian experience at False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach. If you haven’t had a chance to visit False Cape and Back Bay Wildlife Refuge, it’s a gem. In this episode, Fuller describes the varieties and habits of our native heron population as well as the name origins of the whimbrel and our ubiquitous killdeer. Be sure to check out this episode’s bonus content for Fuller’s vivid descriptions of local and migrating bird behaviors.

The Horizon: Laura Lohse has decades of experience teaching and sailing using celestial navigation, that is using the stars, the sun, and the horizon to stay on course. For our word journey, Lohse connects the nautical terms that we use in our day-to-day language—to get a fix, to find your bearings, to give leeway, with their historical use in sailing. To shoot stars is to get lines of position from stars at dusk or dawn using the horizon as a reference. Dead reckoning is using speed estimated with a taffrail log, and in the old days a knot log, to figure out position when there is no horizon in view.

And be sure to check out our bonus content (publishing weekly in April) where: Steve Kuehl describes the rock cycle, from sediment to sedimentary rock and back again(!); Marlee Fuller describes the lively behaviors of the sanderling and how a tricolored heron stealthily creates shade to attract its prey; and Laura Lohse recounts her experiences in the open ocean, from watching mola molas, that is gigantic sun fish that swim on the surface of the ocean, to experiencing the doldrums, long periods with no winds.  

To learn more about the organizations in this podcast, visit:

Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester

https://www.vims.edu/

False Cape State Park, Virginia Beach

https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/false-cape

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia Beach

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/back-bay

Schooner Alliance II, Yorktown

https://sailyorktown.com/

Sloop Luna and the Colonial Seaport Foundation, Deltaville

https://colonialseaport.org/luna-operating-plans/

To connect with us, please send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, review  – it’s free and it helps other listeners find us.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 14 - Bonus : A Vietnamese Voice of Faith 

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 25, 2025

Length: 18:13

Publication Frequency: Occasional (bonus)

In this Bonus episode, we talk to Trung Phan, a pastor at Vietnamese Hope Baptist Church in Annandale, Va. Phan is the youngest of a trio of Vietnamese brothers who lead churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in northern Virginia; all offer services in their native Vietnamese. Like Phan, most of his congregants come from Buddhist backgrounds.

This interview is an addendum to Episode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads, which featured Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese pastors talking about the use of their respective native language in worship services. Phan falls outside our geographic area of Hampton Roads in SE Virginia, but his sentiments echo theirs. He also emphasizes the importance of language in identity and stability for young people. 

His experience ties in to languagingHR Episode 9: What it Takes to Raise Bilingual Children; in that episode we spoke to multiple immigrants in Hampton Roads about their commitment to having their children learn their native language, its rewards and challenges. 

Phan, who was exposed to both Buddhist and Christian traditions in childhood, came with his family to the U.S. from the Saigon region in S. Vietnam in 1991 when he was 17. He completed high school and went to night school for IT, a career he has pursued for 20 years. He was called to the ministry in 2005 and attended seminary in Kentucky. His congregation numbers about 80 people, which swells to 150 on special occasions, such as the New Year. 

He describes himself as a “bridge” between the first generation of older non-English speakers and his American-born children’s generation of English-only speakers.

Send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to ‘like’, ‘follow’, ‘review,’ or ‘subscribe’ to languagingHR so that you never miss an episode (or a bonus episode). It’s FREE to do so and it helps others find us. THANK YOU!

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 5, 2025

Length: 48:50

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month

In this episode we interview several pastors, all first-generation immigrants, who minister to their flocks in the native language of their country of origin.

The interviews are with Pastor Echo Lin from the Shanghai region of mainland China, who leads services in Mandarin at the more than 100-year-old independent First Chinese Baptist Church in Virginia Beach; Father Joseph Nguyen who ministers to two Catholic Vietnamese congregations, Our Lady of LaVang Catholic Church in Norfolk, and Our Lady of Vietnam Catholic Church in Hampton ; and with Luke Do, Senior Pastor of Peninsula Korean Baptist Church in Newport News.

(We also talked to Pastor Trung Phan, leader of Hope Vietnamese Church in Annandale, Va. Time and geographical constraints meant we weren't able to include his interview; we will run it as bonus material at a future date.)

From our interviews, we learned about the changing role of the church in each community, the importance of language for identity, the generational rifts as assimilation occurs -- and what the future of ethnic-centered churches might be as globalization and technology reduce differences.

We did not address the use of traditional liturgical languages, such as Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Koine Greek, all of which are represented in Hampton Roads. Nor did we cover the multiple Spanish-speaking churches, by far the largest segment of non-English services in the region.

Instead, we focused primarily on Asian-led churches that minister to their communities through the use of the vernacular. In talking to ministers at Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese churches we learned not only about immigration patterns in the region, but also the ealier history of colonization and missionary activity. We learned in many cases that faith was secondary to a sense of community and cultural belonging.

Our interest in the topic was sparked by a sign for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Mehane Hiwot Abune Gebre Menfes Kidus, in the Park Place neighborhood of Norfolk . We learned that the Norfolk church, started in 2013, is part of one of the most ancient branches of Christianity, part of the Coptic tradition dating back to 300 AD. Priest Teshome Yohannes Feleke presides over a congregation of 200 drawn from throughout Hampton Roads. Services are in a combination of Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical language, and Amharic, Ethiopia's everyday language that evolved from it. (Plug in the church's name to find beautiful chanting on YouTube.) The church is celebrating its renovation with a grand re-opening on March 14/15.

We also discovered Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Norge, which once held services in Norwegian. Today the language is no longer used, but the church is the proud possessor of a Norwegian Bible donated by Norway's royal family in 1939. We also learned that Norge is actually the name for Norway in Norwegian, a tribute to its original Scandinavian settlers at the turn of the 20th century!

As you can gather, it's a very rich topic and we only scratched the surface of the Babel of languages used in worship in our Hampton Roads region.

Please send your questions and feedback to [email protected]

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 13: Guinea Talk: Gloucester County’s

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Feb 2, 2025

Length: 39:44

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month

Take a ride with us--to Guinea Neck!

Nestled in the marshland of Gloucester County, Virginia, is Guinea Neck, where the local community has made their living off the water for centuries. Traditionally, the lifestyle of Guinea has been comprised of long hours on the water and a tight knit community, the ideal situation for the development of a unique language variation.

Although receding, the Guinea dialect is well known in the Gloucester area. We tapped into oral histories to try to understand the unique features of their dialect. In this episode, we introduce you to four Guinea watermen, born and raised in the early to mid-twentieth century. We take account of their stories of living and working on the water, while walking through the stages of their lives and experiences.

Along the way we talk with linguist, Dr. Bridget Anderson at

We also talk with Carlene Klein who, with two other students of Dr. Anderson, through a yearlong ethnographic process, interviewed a number of the Guinea watermen.

The Guinea watermen featured in this episode share stories of growing up in the remote marshes of Guines, of living with their close family connections, of learning the ropes and starting work on the water at young ages, and of the joy of being on the water.

Tidewater Voices is housed at ODU Digital Commons and is available to the public for research. There are 22 Guinea oral histories in the collection. You can find them here: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices_gloucester/  Look for the Guinea subheading.

 If you like languagingHR episodes and want to hear more about how we created the episodes for 2024, get a behind this scenes tour by listening to our presentation to the National Museum of Language:

languagingHR was also featured in The Virginia Pilot in December. Check it out: https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/12/24/says-who-linguists-look-at-tidewater-dialect-and-culture-in-podcast/

Send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 12 : You Can’t Play Scrabble in Urdu: Endangered Alphabets and Minority Scripts

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Dec. 31, 2024

Length: 48:20

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

Co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky invite listeners to join them at https://languagemuseum.org as they present on ‘languaging in Hampton Roads’ to The National Museum of Language, part of its monthly online speaker series. The event runs from 2 to 4 p.m EST  on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025; registration is free at https://languagemuseum.org/speaker-series/#lghr

The talk will be recorded and available on the NML site going forward.

This month we interview Tim Brookes, a teacher, writer, and wood carver.  Fifteen years ago Brookes launched the Endangered Alphabets Project to raise awareness about — and to preserve — the estimated 275 minority scripts threatened with extinction. While there are 7,000 spoken languages still extant, there are only 300 scripts worldwide. Brookes memorializes the scripts by carving them in wood, a unique blend of art and literacy.

He will host his 2nd Annual World Endangered Writing Day on Jan. 23, 2025 at https://www.endangeredwriting.world/  following the success of the inaugural event last year. Live-streamed speakers include script inventors, digitization experts, font creators, community activists and in-the-field researchers.

Find an archive of last year’s event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHR3fRN60tw&list=PLYG37Sb2buKjaMtjztHjDc5pSS1a1jorr). 

According to Brookes, his website https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/ will feature a gallery that “celebrates a remarkable phenomenon that is springing up worldwide: people who are reviving their traditional scripts by teaching them through calligraphy workshops.” There will be give-aways and a quiz. 

Brookes’ two most recent books are “An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets” and “Writing Beyond Writing,” available through his website or Amazon. 

In our wide-ranging interview with Brookes, edited for length, we discuss minority scripts around the world, cursive writing in the U.S.,the effects of printing and mechanization, and address the question, “What is writing?” We even find some connections to Hampton Roads, our local region.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 11: From Dogwoods to Diospyros: The Origins of Plant Names in Hampton Roads 

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Nov. 30, 2024

Length: 36 min

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

In this episode of Languaging Hampton Roads, we talk with three botanical experts about the origins of common and scientific names of plants and fungi that grow in the Hampton Roads area: Nicole Knudson is a botanist and owner of the Norfolk-based business Lady Fern’s Native Plants, 4900 Colley Ave, Norfolk;  [email protected]; Vickie Shufer is a naturalist and herbalist and owner of Wild Woods Farm, Virginia Beach, https://wildwoodsfarm.us; and Sarah Winkowski, a Hampton Roads native who is a graduate student at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. 

Our experts take us on a journey from high among the trees to low on the woodland floor and finally under leaves and logs, as they explain the names of some of our iconic plants, such as the dogwood tree, the persimmon tree, Spanish moss, the Yaupon holly, and mushrooms such as chicken of the woods and the chanterelle.

 Our discussions also span history with commentary on how the common names of plants have evolved over the years, including the Native American origins of the English common name of the Yaupon holly; the medieval idea that plant shapes signified their medicinal use; and the prolific period of botany work in colonial Virginia and its connections to Carl Linnaeus. Listening to this episode is like exploring our native environment, a foray into the natural areas of Hampton Roads.

In this episode, we promised to provide a list of volunteer opportunities for those who want to get more involved in the area’s native plants:

Places to volunteer with native plants include the Norfolk Botanical Garden https://norfolkbotanicalgarden.org; the Elizabeth River Trail, https://elizabethrivertrail.org; the Elizabeth River Project, https://elizabethriver.org. 

 Also, check out Virginia’s Master Gardener organization to find your city’s chapter: https://mastergardener.ext.vt..edu.

Another Virginia Extension program is the Virginia Master Naturalist program; the Tidewater chapter, Tidewater Master Naturalists, https://tidewatermn.org is taking applications now through January for the 2025 volunteer training class.

Virginia Native Plant Society, https://vnps.org to find your local chapter.