Subtitle

You may not have heard of Frisian, but it's spoken by about 500,000 people. Once upon a time, an older form of the language was barely distinct from Old English. We take you to the Dutch province of Friesland to hear why people there care so deeply about their mother tongue. Texting, social media, music and theater are all giving Frisian a new lease of life.

Photo of Frisian teacher Anna Marije Bloem and students by Patrick Cox. Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Podington Bear, Lobo Loco and Frisian metal band Baldrs Draumar. Connect with the Frisian Academy here, Frisian-language theater company Tryater here and author Willem Schoorstra here. Read a transcript of this episode here.

Digital consultant Ivanka Majic was such an early user of Twitter that she was able to snag the handle @Ivanka. Which was great, until the rise of another Ivanka caused confusion. Many Twitter users— including the other Ivanka's father— mistook one for the other. In this archive episode, Ivanka Majic tells the story of her brush with fame, and how the name she was innocently given at birth has affected her. Also, Subtitle host Kavita Pillay discusses her in-the-works documentary about people in southern India who are named after Lenin, Stalin and other political heroes of their parents.

The music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. The photo on the left is courtesy of Ivanka Majic; on the right from the US Embassy, Berlin, via Flickr. Listen here to Michael and Ivanka's Grand Podcast. Read a transcript of the episode here.

In our upcoming season, we have stories on notorious names, the future of Braille, a history of alphabetical order and much more. Look out the first episode with Patrick and Kavita on March 17.

Subtitle is produced by Quiet Juice and the Linguistic Society of America. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Photo by Patrick Cox. Patrick's dog, Louis, is working on coming up with the right words to tell his story.

Here's a guest episode from our friends at A Better Life?, a podcast from Feet in 2 Worlds about the immigrant experience in the time of COVID-19. The episode follows two US-based immigrants. Heeja, born in South Korea, and Elsa, born in Mexico, both wrestle with the same question: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Music in this episode by Fareed Sajan. The photo of Heeja and her children Jeff and Mia is courtesy of Mia Warren. Read more about A Better Life? here. More on Subtitle here.

Tina Tobey was born and raised in Texas. She's used to non-Texans expecting her to know all about oil-drilling and ranching. And of course to speak "like a Texan." While she barely meets those expectations, Tina has come to realize that she speaks more Texas English than she thought. Also in this episode: how difficult is it to win an accent bias lawsuit? And to overcome our own accent biases? This is the fourth and final part in our series on speech, identity and bias.

Notes on contributors: Tina Tobey is Subtitle's sound designer. Lars Hinrichs is the director of the Texas English Language Lab at the University of Texas. Erica Brozovsky is also at the University of Texas where she researches the speech of Taiwanese Texans. New York-based attorney Melinda Koster has litigated employment discrimination cases and written about the topic of accent discrimination.  Erez Levon teaches sociolinguistics at Queen Mary University of London and is  the principal investigator of the Accent Bias in Britain project.

The music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions, Podington Bear, Biddy Sullivan, Moss Harman, Alexandra Woodward and Alan Carlson-Green. The photo is courtesy of Tina Tobey who is pictured in her youth atop a Texas-bred horse. Read a transcript of this episode here.