In this episode I discuss numbers, counting, and some of the other ways to refer to numbers and amounts in English – there are a lot more than you probably realise.

You can also hear it, and find notes and links at: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=791

In this episode I talk about some of the benefits and advantages of learning minority and lesser-studied languages, focusing particularly on the Irish and other Celtic languages. I talk about my own experiences with these languages, and the benefits they have brought me.

There's no point in learning small languages, is there? They're spoken by relatively few people and maybe only in one country or region. So why bother?

It would be better to learn a language that has many millions of speakers and that is spoken in many countries, like Spanish or French, wouldn't it?

Perhaps, but whatever language you learn can bring benefits and opportunities, even small, lesser-studied and minority languages.

You can find notes on this episode at: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=779

This is a tune I wrote on the piano in August 2019 for no particular reason. The title comes from seeing my neighbours cats playing around in the hedge in my garden.

You can find the score for this piece at: https://musescore.com/user/16918231/scores/5667004

In this episode I talk about language families – what they are, and how they develop, and I introduce some major and minor language families.

You can find notes on this episode at: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=746

This is a song I wrote in June 2019. I come up with a new song every month to share at the singer-songwriter group I go to, and this is my June song. It came to me one Monday morning, hence the name, and the image shows some of the words I scribbled down that day.

In this recording I accompany myself on the guitar with just two chords - Am and Dm. In the instrumental bit I play the tune in three different octaves with a few chords.

Here are the words:

I like to sing in the morning before I get up

I like to sing in the shower too

I like to sing as I'm making my meals you know

I like to sing as I'm washing the dishes

Chorus

I could sing all day long and through the night

I could sing 'til the morning light

So let's sing all day long and through the night

Let's sing with all our might

I like to sing as I'm walking along the street

I like to sing to the people I meet

I like to sing on the bus and on the train

And I even like to sing in the rain

I like to sing to the sea and to the sky

I like to sing to the rivers and streams

I like to sing to the valleys and to the hills

I like to sing to the birds and bees

This is a silly little ditty I wrote in early 2019 for no particular reason. Accompaniment is on the tenor and baritone ukuleles, kazoo, swanee whistle and shaky egg.

Here are the words:

It's sensible to be silly sometimes

It's okay to be odd

It's cool to be quite quirky and wierd

Cause none of us are perfect

Chorus

None of us are perfect

None of us are perfect

We're all flawed in our own unique ways

And that's what makes us human

So embrace your impefections and flaws

And wallow in your wackiness

And play the fool whenever you can

Cause none of us are perfect

So dare to be quite different and strange

Don't always follow the herd

Be who you are, be quite absurd

Cause none of us are perfect

The photo is of me with William Gladstone in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, taken by a friend of mine.

This is a tune I wrote in June 2019 for no particular reason. This arrangement is for tin whistle, low whistle or flute, cavaquinho, guitar and bass.

You can see the dots at: https://musescore.com/user/16918231/scores/5630146

This is a song about a weeble, written and sung by Rosie Waite, a friend of mine. I added accompaniment on ukuleles, swanee whistle and shaky egg.

I found the weeble image online, and added the spots. The owl call you hear is a tawny owl, and comes from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BSljsYe0To

The words are as follows:

I walked along the shore one night

asleep in deep repose

And there with the waves lapping at his toes

Stood a purple-spotted weeble

with a bright blue nose

Stand a while with me the weeble said

Please don't pass me by

Come stand with me and look with me

Let's watch the daffodils

falling from the sky

The moon rose full and orange

And shed its light across the sea

A shining path across the waves

Reaching out to weeble

and beckoning to me

We took that path that shining night

My weeble friend and I

Across the waves as pirate ships

with fiersome flags a-flying

sailed swiftly by

White owls swooping softly past

Called out hello hello

Follow that path wherever it may go

Whatever lies before us

we never really know

A few friends and I meet regularly to sing, play recorders, share songs we're writing, and to talk nonsense. In September 2019 we recorded some of our songs and put them on a CD for Rosie, who was too ill to join us at the time. Sadly Rosie died in October 2019. You can hear the songs we recorded at: https://www.omniglot.com/songs/silly/index.htm

In this episode I talk about pidgins and creoles - what are they, how they develop, what they sound like, how they are structed, and so on.

You can find notes and leave comments at: http://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=711(opens in a new tab)

This is a silly little ditty I started writing back in 2016, forgot about, then rediscovered and finished in 2019. This recording was made by me in June 2019 and features soprano and baritone ukuleles, kazoo, shaky egg and swanee whistle.

Here are the words;

I am a gnu, I live in a shoe

I dream about teapots

and play the kazoo

Chorus

Dardledumdue, dardledumdue

Dardledum, dardldum, dardledumdue

I am a gnat, I wear a cravatte

I like playing scrabble

And live under a hat

I am a gnome, I live on a dome

I like wadding through custard

And swimming in foam

I am a gnop, I run a small shop

I like knitting knotweed

But know when to stop

Dardledumdue is a dialect word from East Anglia in the east of England, and means daydreamer. I think I first heard it on a podcast, liked it, and thought I could write a song using it.

It appears in Susie Dent's book, How to Talk Like a Local: From Cockney to Geordie: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/How_to_Talk_Like_a_Local.html?id=uWKp52--eoYC&redir_esc=y

I made up the word gnop as I wanted another word beginning with gn for some kind of creature, but couldn't find one.

The image of the daydreaming boy comes from : https://art4clip.com/explore/Dreaming%20clipart%20kid%20thinking/