Said & Done

Professor Carol Rounds, lecturer of Hungarian at Columbia University, speaks about some of the unique and challenging ways in which Hungarian is structured, and why it is so interesting to linguists. She discusses how this agglutinative language creates meaning and allows for play in ways that are surprising to speakers of English, as a consequence of its morphological and syntactic complexity.

Professor Millicent Marcus of Yale University speaks about her life and work as a scholar of Italian literature. We focus in particular on her witnessing of and participation in two world-historical events: the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the 1966 flood of the River Arno in Florence. She describes her experiences as one of the "Angeli del fango," the young people who helped to recover books, manuscripts, and works of art from the damage of the floodwaters.

Chris Kaiser thanks the listeners and guests of the Said & Done podcast and announces a new schedule for 2023.

Professor Jay Ramesh of Columbia University discusses his knowledge of and experiences in three languages of India: Sanskrit, Tamil, and Malayalam. He describes the myths and stories associated with Hindu temples, and in particular a certain kind of text called a Sthala Purana, some of which are written first in Sanskrit and then later given a unique kind of translation into Tamil.

Ross Perlin, professor at Columbia in the Linguistics program and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, discusses how large cities are often home to endangered languages from around the world. He talks about the challenges of preserving and revitalizing languages with few speakers, and gives the examples of Seke, a language of Nepal, and Lunaape (also called Lenape or Delaware), a Native American language of the Algonquian family.

Yudis Nugraha, instructor of Indonesian at Columbia University, talks about growing up speaking both Indonesian and Balinese. He discusses the relationship between language, tourism, culture and religion in Bali, focusing in on the unique religion of Balinese Hinduism. Approximately 90% of people living in Bali identify as belonging to this religion, whose origins trace back to traders and priests from India coming to the Indonesian archipelago 2000 years ago.

Felice Beneduce discusses growing up in an Italian family in Providence, Rhode Island and speaking standard Italian at home. He talks about how his love for the Italian language has figured prominently throughout his life, from his time serving in the Italian army, to living in northern Italy, to studying Italian literature, and now to passing this knowledge on to his students and his family as a teacher of the language.

As the war in Ukraine passes its six-month mark, we look back on our conversation with Yuri Shevchuk from March 2022. This episode highlights two moments from that interview in which Yuri discusses Ukrainian speakers' strategic use of language in recent decades, as well as in the ongoing invasion.

In this conversation, Simon talks about growing up speaking both Polish and English, as well as learning several other languages along the way. We then explore different facets of the experience of bilingualism, in particular how certain situations cause him to choose one language over the other, and how trying to use the other language when it's not the right situation for it can sometimes cause problems.

Dr. Luana Ferreira is a linguist, educator, and host of the podcast Bocona: All Things Dominican. In this conversation, she talks about growing up in the Dominican community in New York, as well as in the Dominican Republic. She discusses some of the characteristics of the Dominican variety of Spanish, and shares how her podcast is seeking to amplify, uplift, center, and empower Dominican voices.

https://boconaallthingsdominican.buzzsprout.com/