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The History of the English Language Podcast
The History of the English Language Podcast episodes
- Irregular Verbs Unveiled: From Old English Roots to Modern Usage
This episode traces why English still carries a handful of irregular verbs—exploring their Germanic origins, the forces of frequency and lexicographic choice that preserve them, and how modern corpora and AI confirm their persistence.
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12 min - Scouse, the Long s, and Companion: Dialect, Printing, and Etymology in English History
Explore how Liverpool’s Scouse dialect emerged from maritime trade, how the long ‘s’ letter once looked like an f and shaped early modern printing, and how the word companion traces back to Latin bread‑sharing. These three stories illustrate the power of contact, technology, and metaphor in shaping English across centuries.
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15 min - Kachru’s Three Circles: The Global Journey of English
Explore Braj Kachru’s Three Circles model that maps the evolving relationship between native speakers, former colonies, and foreign learners of English. Learn how migration, digital media, and colonial history have reshaped the language into a global lingua franca, and why standardization struggles in today’s hybrid varieties.
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14 min - Cwen to Queen: The Silent Spell‑Change That Shaped English Orthography
Explore how the Old English word cwen became queen, tracing the quiet shift from a ‘cw’ digraph to a ‘qu’ spelling under Norman scribes and the printing press. Learn what this orthographic revolution reveals about cultural contact, standardization, and the lasting influence of medieval copyists on modern English.
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14 min - The Strange History of the Word Girl
Explore how the seemingly simple word ‘girl’ evolved from medieval, gender‑fluid meanings to its modern sense—uncovering uncertain roots, shifting usages, and cultural forces that shaped English over centuries.
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17 min - Cajun English: How French Contact Shaped a Southern Dialect
Explore how Acadian exiles brought Louisiana French to the Bayou, creating a bilingual environment that left lasting traces in grammar, vocabulary, and rhythm—revealing how code‑switching and cultural preservation forged a unique dialect of American English.
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15 min - General American: The Myth Behind America’s ‘Neutral’ Accent
In this episode we trace the roots of General American—from its birth in early radio to its rise as a national standard on television and in education. We examine the social, technological, and political forces that shaped what many hear as a neutral voice, and how that perception continues to evolve today.
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13 min - Trade Routes & Borrowed Words: How Global Commerce Shaped English
This episode traces how merchants, sailors, and scholars from the Persian Gulf to Italy to Southeast Asia slipped loanwords into English—spices, algebra, coffee, silk—and how those terms helped cement English as a lingua franca of trade, science, and culture.
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18 min - Accents & Authority: Tracing Class Through British English Dialects
From Received Pronunciation and Cockney in the 20th century to Estuary English and modern Multicultural London English, this episode traces how accents have long served as social status markers in Britain. We explore the historical forces—industrialization, media, and migration—that reshaped these sounds and what they reveal about class dynamics today.
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16 min - From Parler to Parliament: How a French Word Became Britain’s Political Voice
In this episode we trace the journey of the word parliament—from its Old French root meaning ‘to speak’ through medieval England, into modern democratic parlance—examining how language and power intertwine across centuries.
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20 min
About The History of the English Language Podcast
From the publisher's feed
The History of the English Language Podcast, hosted by Josh Linsk, explores how English developed from its earliest roots into one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. Each episode traces the people, migrations, invasions, cultures, technologies, and historical events that shaped English vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and everyday speech.
The podcast follows the language through Old English, the Anglo-Saxon period, Viking influence, the Norman Conquest, Middle English, the Great Vowel Shift, Early Modern English, Shakespeare, the printing press, colonial expansion, American English, and the rise of English as a global language. Along the way, it examines where words came from, why meanings changed, how accents developed, and how English absorbed influences from Latin, French, Norse, Greek, and many other languages.
From ancient word origins to slang, dictionaries, dialects, literature, pronunciation, and modern language change, The History of the English Language Podcast brings together linguistics, history, etymology, culture, and the evolution of English for anyone fascinated by how the language became what it is today.