Subtitle
70 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 days ago - ★★★★★ - 167 ratingsLanguage unites and divides us. It mystifies and delights us. Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay tell the stories of people with all kinds of linguistic passions: comedians, writers, researchers; speakers of endangered languages; speakers of multiple languages; and just speakers—people like you and me.
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Episodes
How Basque speakers saved their language
April 17, 2024 04:01 - 34 minutes - 47.2 MBHow did Basque survive Spain's military dictatorship under Francisco Franco when speaking, writing and reading it were illegal? With more than six dialects, how did its speakers agree on a standard way of writing the language? And how has Basque thrived in the decades since Franco died? Nina Porzucki tells the story of Europe's most mysterious language and its tenacious speakers— a story that includes immigration to the American West, decades of exile in South America, translations of Shakes...
Chinese sci-fi has crossed the translation barrier
April 04, 2024 04:02 - 30 minutes - 41.8 MBNetflix's lavish new adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem is the latest 'translation' of one of this century's best, and best-selling, sci-fi novels. In this episode, we track the role of translation—on screen and on the page—in the global rise of Chinese sci-fi. Our guide is reporter and sci-fi aficionada Lydia Emmanouilidou who talks with several people involved in the Chinese literary scene, notably The Three-Body Problem's English translator Ken Liu. More about Lydia Emmano...
Why the French use the English word ‘black’
March 20, 2024 04:01 - 21 minutes - 30.2 MBThe French language is replete with words borrowed from English, like 'weekend' and 'podcasting.' But French speakers' use of 'black' is in a category of its own: this one short syllable tells the story of France's racial and colonial legacies and how they stack up against U.S. history, from slavery to Black Lives Matter. Both countries are idealistic, rooted in 18th-century revolutions and grand principles. But while many in the US value racial and ethnic difference, France sees itself as a...
The Irish language renaissance
March 06, 2024 05:01 - 34 minutes - 47.7 MBIrish is among Europe's oldest languages. It's a near miracle that anyone speaks it today. Patrick talks with online Irish teacher Mollie Guidera whose students include a Kentucky farmer who speaks Irish to his horses; also with Irish scholar Jim McCloskey who developed a love of the language when he spent a summer living with Irish speakers. Irish is changing fast, with far more of its speakers learning it as a second language, while the native-speaker population declines. Music by Elliot ...
From linguistic shame to pride
February 21, 2024 05:01 - 32 minutes - 44.9 MBIsrael Jesus used to be ashamed of being from the Mexican state of Oaxaca and speaking the local indigenous tongue, Triqui. When he moved to Salinas, California, a kid in his high school told Jesus he was destined to work in the fields nearby. But it was his knowledge of Triqui that sent him on a different path. A hospital in Salinas recruited Jesus to interpret for the increasing number of Triqui-speaking patients. It's part of an effort in California and beyond to expand medical interpreta...
Easing into multilingualism
February 07, 2024 05:02 - 20 minutes - 28.4 MBMastering six languages sounds like a slog, right? But in some corners of Europe, it happens—maybe not effortlessly, but more easily than in, say, Ohio. Gaston Dorren grew up speaking Limburgish at home, and Dutch at school. He fell in love in German and picked up Spanish in Latin America, all the while keeping English and French in his back pocket. He tells Patrick about his love of verbing nouns, and Dutch people's unconsciously sexist choice of pronouns. Also, Gaston is a fabulous multili...
How the brain of an improv performer works
January 24, 2024 05:01 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MBDoes the brain of an improv comedian or freestyle rapper function in a particular way? Is it processing language faster than a regular, lower-improvising brain? Or is something else also going on, something to do with how we judge ourselves? We asked our pal Ari Daniel to look into this. He found a group of researchers and a group of professional improvisers working together on some of these questions. Photo of Dutch-based comedy improv group Easy Laughs by Robin Straaijer. Music in this...
Sugar Sammy’s multilingual comedy
December 13, 2023 05:19 - 20 minutes - 27.9 MBA conversation with comedian with Samir Khullar who grew up speaking Punjabi, Hindi, English and French. He does standup in all those languages, sometimes mixing them up. He has toured more than 40 countries, but audiences in his native Québec perhaps see the best of him. That's where he performs a bilingual French/English show called You're Gonna Rire (and now, You're Gonna Rire 2). As a Quebecer/Québécois, Sugar Sammy's comedy exposes the absurdity of language politics while also celebrati...
Is Mx here to stay?
November 29, 2023 05:02 - 29 minutes - 40.4 MBWhen a word first enters the language, it sounds weird to some, radical to others and comforting to just a few. Only later does it seem 'natural.' So it was with the honorific Ms in the 20th century. So it may be with the non-binary Mx. Today, British banks and utilities routinely give customers the option to use Mx. Will American companies follow suit? And what might Shakespeare have thought? His gender-neutral 'master-mistress,' is arguably more poetic than Mx, but it might be a bit of a m...
Americans, Brits and the foreignness of English
November 15, 2023 05:01 - 24 minutes - 33.7 MBAmerican English and British English aren't different languages. But they're not the same either, even if they're getting closer. There are all those different words for things: diaper/nappy, faucet/tap and so on. More challenging are common words used in subtly different ways: sure, reckon, middle class. Who better to ask about these and other terms than UK-based American linguist Lynne Murphy and her British husband and daughter? Spoiler alert: They don't always agree. Lynne Murphy is th...
A German-speaking outpost in the American Midwest
November 01, 2023 04:05 - 28 minutes - 38.5 MBGerman used to be one of the most widely-spoken languages in the United States. A survey in 1900 listed 613 US-based German-language newspapers. Today, only a handful survive, and German is barely spoken at all. One exception is Cole Camp, Missouri. Our guide, Suzanne Hogan, hosts public radio station KCUR's podcast, A People's History of Kansas City. Thanks to Suzanne Hogan for the photo of German language activists Neil and Marilyn Heimsoth. More photos and info on Camp Cole's German-Ame...
Season 4 is coming
October 18, 2023 04:02 - 2 minutes - 4.05 MBIn our upcoming season, we have stories about voice clones, tongue twisters and small languages fighting back. We'll hear from comedians, bilingual lovers and badly-behaved grandmothers. Look out for the first episode on November 1. Music by Harry Edvino and The Freeharmonic Orchestra. Photo by Patrick Cox. Subtitle is a production of Quiet Juice and the Linguistic Society of America. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsletter here.
Presenting Exile
January 11, 2023 05:01 - 41 minutes - 56.5 MBSubtitle is delighted to share an episode of Exile, a podcast about Jewish lives under the shadow of fascism. In this episode, Florence Mendheim, a young Jewish librarian in New York, risks her life to spy on the growing Nazi movement in America. Adopting a fake German persona, she attends American Nazi rallies and works in their headquarters. Everything is on the line to try to halt hate in its tracks. More on Florence Mendheim here. Listen to more Exile episodes here. Exile is a productio...
The precious secrets of Udi
November 16, 2022 05:01 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MBNever heard of the Udi language? Get ready to be beguiled by this poster child for endangered languages. The history of the Udi people and their language includes an ancient kingdom, an exodus to escape persecution, and the creation of a bespoke alphabet. Udi also has a unique grammatical feature, a form of linguistic behavior that scholars previously thought was impossible. No wonder the small Udi-speaking community of Zinobiani in the Republic of Georgia attracts visitors from around the w...
The future sound of Black English
November 02, 2022 04:02 - 18 minutes - 25.5 MBIf you want to know where African American English is headed, listen to Shondel Nero. Shondel was born in the Caribbean nation of Guyana where she code-switched between Guyana Creolese and colonial British English. As a young adult she moved to North America, eventually settling in New York City where she became a professor of language education at NYU. Shondel tells guest host Ciku Theuri that the various versions of English spoken by Black immigrants are rubbing off on Black American speec...
How music has shaped African American speech
October 19, 2022 04:02 - 17 minutes - 23.7 MBGuest host Ciku Theuri speaks with music writer Jordannah Elizabeth about the intimate relationship between music and Black American speech. That connection was never closer than in the 1930s and 40s when Cab Calloway's Hepster Dictionary and Sister Rosetta Tharpe's groundbreaking rock 'n' roll established new artistic and linguistic pathways. This is the second of our three-part series on African American English. Jordannah Elizabeth is the founder of the Feminist Jazz Review and author o...
Where did African American English come from?
October 05, 2022 04:01 - 23 minutes - 32.4 MBAre the roots of African American English mainly African? Or English? Or something else? Linguists—and others—don't agree. Ciku Theuri guides us through the theories. Opinions from Nicole Holliday, John McWhorter, John Rickford and Sunn m'Cheaux, who we also profiled in a previous Subtitle episode. Music in this episode by A P O L L O, Jobii, and Tilden Parc. Photo of Michelle Obama by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons. Read a transcript of the episode here. Subscribe to Subtitle's fortni...
A brief history of death threats
September 21, 2022 04:01 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MBUntil recently, issuing a death threat required some effort. Today, anyone with a phone or computer can make a threat—or receive one. The result is a “golden age” for the dark realm of personal threats. Forensic linguist Tanya Karoli Christensen and forensic psychologist Lisa Warren help us trace the history of death threats from eloquently penned letters to casually written social media posts. As the platforms for making threats are changing, so too are the methods for assessing their po...
Latin, the undead language
September 07, 2022 04:01 - 24 minutes - 33.3 MBIf Latin is dead, why is it easy to find meetups of people speaking it? Why is a group of scholars and lexicographers working on what has become a century-spanning Latin dictionary project? Former Latin student Cristina Quinn challenges Patrick Cox to seek answers to these and more questions about the supposedly dead language that is still all around us. Photo by Patrick Cox. Music by Marc Torch, Arthur Benson, Frank Jonsson, Farrell Wooten, and Andreas Boldt. Read a transcript of this epi...
Learning to love apostrophes
July 06, 2022 04:02 - 26 minutes - 36.8 MBEllen Jovin belongs to that rare breed of human with a passion for grammar. You will too if you spend a few minutes with her, your grammar anxiety melting away in minutes. That's what happens when apostrophe-challenged Patrick meets Ellen at her Grammar Table in New York's Central Park. There, Ellen fields questions from passers-by about commas, semicolons, ellipses and weird-sounding neologisms. Ellen tells Patrick about her word-obsessed childhood, her love of hyphens, and why a Jehovah's ...
Hello, Goodbye
June 22, 2022 04:01 - 35 minutes - 49.5 MBSteve Jobs' last words were: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." Oscar Wilde went with: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." (At least, that's how the story goes.) But the way most of us part company with language at the end of our lives is more halting and gradual. Even when a dying loved one is unable to speak clearly, other forms of communication often take over: noises, gestures, touch and eye contact. We have stories in this episode from a hospice nurse, from journalists covering mental healt...
How the Ojibwe language survived the pandemic
June 08, 2022 04:02 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBHow do you keep your language alive while also protecting the health of elders? That's been the quandary facing Ojibwe educators during the pandemic. As native speakers, Ojibwe elders were the primary teachers of the language, but they were also the most vulnerable to COVID. Leah Lemm of Minnesota's Mille Lacs Ojibwe band tells us how she and others figured out how to continue learning while also ensuring the wellbeing of teaching elders like her own father. Music in this episode by Aira...
Ukraine’s linguistic patriotism
May 25, 2022 04:05 - 25 minutes - 34.9 MBFor centuries, Russians have dismissed the Ukrainian language as "Little Russian," its speakers as simple-minded peasants. The Kremlin has sporadically and unsuccessfully tried to suppress the language. Now Russia's invasion of Ukraine has driven even some Russian-speaking Ukrainians to switch to Ukrainian. We trace the defiant rise of this language with the University of Washington's Laada Bilaniuk, American-born daughter of Ukrainian parents. Photo of Andriy Khlyvnyuk via YouTube screen...
The rare joys of learning Finnish
May 11, 2022 05:01 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MBKavita Pillay recently moved to Helsinki with her Finnish husband and half-Finnish daughter. While husband and daughter effortlessly embraced their new linguistic surroundings, Kavita...didn't. In this episode, she seeks guidance from other immigrants with varying degrees of Finnish mastery. Among them, an opera singer who finds melody in verb conjugations, and an Iraqi-born linguistics major whose fluent Finnish is sometimes questioned by locals. Photo by Sauli Pillay. Music by Greatfool;...
Presenting More Than a Feeling
April 27, 2022 05:01 - 36 minutes - 49.5 MBWe can't always find words to describe our emotions—not in English, at least. In this episode, Saleem Reshamwala asks friends who speak other languages to share their favorite emotion words and phrases. He also seeks guidance from psychologist Ashley Ruba, and Tim Lomas, author of Happiness Found in Translation: A Glossary of Joy from Around the World. This is a guest episode from the new Ten Percent Happier podcast, More Than a Feeling: more info and show notes here. Photo by allyaubry via...
Will climate change wipe out French in Louisiana?
April 13, 2022 04:01 - 27 minutes - 37.6 MBFor hundreds of years, people living in Louisiana's bayou country have spoken French. But rising sea levels are submerging entire communities, forcing people to abandon their homes. As native French speakers move away, will the language survive in this most French of American states? We hitch a ride to the bayou with linguist Nathalie Dajko. Music in this episode by Alces Adams, View Points, Amos Noah, Earle Belo, Finn Danniell, Sture Zetterberg and Lindsey Abraham. Photo by Julia Kumari ...
When did comedians start saying ‘punching up’ and ‘punching down’?
March 30, 2022 05:01 - 32 minutes - 44 MBThey're not in American dictionaries yet, but the terms, 'punching up' and 'punching down' are on the lips of many comedians. With the help of linguist and journalist Ben Zimmer and British comedian Richard Herring, we trace the migration of these words from sports to cable news to comedy. Along the way, we catch up with the history of performers and writers targeting the rich and powerful (punching up) or mocking the oppressed and vulnerable (punching down). In reporting this episode, we...
The language of the outside people
March 16, 2022 05:01 - 38 minutes - 53.2 MBIn this episode, we tell the inspiring, heartbreaking story of Radio Haiti. For several decades, the station broadcast not just in French, spoken by Haiti's elite, but also in Kreyòl, spoken by rich and poor alike. The Kreyòl-language programs communicated directly with the rural poor—the 'outside people'—popularizing issues of inequity and corruption. Helping us tell Radio Haiti's story are Michèle Montas, widow of the station's assassinated owner Jean Dominique, and archivist Laura Wagner....
The speechways of the folk
March 02, 2022 05:02 - 18 minutes - 26 MBDoes your grandmother call a chest of drawers a dresser? Or a bureau? Or perhaps a chiffonier? Over the years and across regions, Americans have favored many different words for furniture—and much else. Since 1929, the Linguistic Atlas Project has been documenting these lexical changes. We tell the story of the Project, from its early days of interviewing retired male farmers, through its initially clumsy attempts to engage Black Americans, to today's scientific, demographically diverse appr...
‘Manifesting’ the language of self-help
February 16, 2022 05:01 - 23 minutes - 31.9 MBIf you’ve ever set boundaries, taken up a gratitude practice or manifested, you’re already well-versed in the language of self-help. Over its long history, self-help has acquired its own lexicon, often repurposing words along the way. Nowadays, the flavor is American but that wasn't always the case. We delve into the past and present of self-help language with Kristen Meinzer, co-host of the podcast, By the Book. Music in this episode by Frank Jonsson, Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Airae, How...
Why some words are just funny
February 02, 2022 05:01 - 27 minutes - 37.4 MBWhy do so many of us laugh at a word like 'poop' but not at, say, 'treadmill'? Is it all down to their meaning? Or are we also responding to the sound of these words? Psycholinguist Chris Westbury set out to discover the answer. Assisted by an inventive computer, Westbury and colleagues dreamed up a bunch of non-words (like "snunkoople"), and tested their funniness on the public. We discuss the results, as well as our favorite funny words—and we get some authentically amusing help from comed...
A mother tongue reclaimed
January 19, 2022 05:01 - 36 minutes - 49.8 MBWhen Julie Sedivy was four, her Czech family emigrated to Canada. In this episode we hear how Julie became estranged from her native Czech, only to rediscover it after the death of her father. Julie Sedivy's linguistic memoir is Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self. Photo (courtesy Julie Sedivy) shows Julie, center, and two siblings on their arrival at Montreal's airport. Music in this episode by Gavin Luke, Arthur Benson, Esme Cruz, Aerian, Jon Bjork, Spectacles Wallet...
Teach me your song
January 05, 2022 05:01 - 21 minutes - 29.6 MBIs it easier to sing than speak in another language? Artist Wen-hao Tien is putting that idea to the test. She has invited friends from around the world to teach her a song in their mother tongue. Patrick listens in on a few of the lessons and also teaches Wen-hao one of his favorite (punky) songs. Music in this episode by Leimoti, Ofelia Moore, and Honeycutts. Photo, courtesy Wen-hao Tien, shows Suzi Hamill teaching Wen-hao Tien a Mozart aria. Sign up to teach Wen-hao your song here. F...
Once upon a hyphen…
December 15, 2021 05:01 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MBSome people have origin stories. Pardis Mahdavi has a hyphenation story. Her Iranian family was the target of a hate crime in Minnesota. She was stripped of her citizenship in Iran. Eventually she embraced the hyphen between the words 'Iranian' and 'American' as her identity: two cultures within one person. But what exactly is the function of a hyphen? Does it unite two ideas, or divide them? Together with Pardis Mahdavi, we trace the many disputes surrounding this seemingly humble horizo...
Season 3 is coming
December 02, 2021 05:02 - 1 minute - 2.61 MBIn our upcoming season, we'll have stories on people who have "lost" their mother tongue, the language of self help, why certain sounds make us laugh, and much more. The first episode drops December 15. Subtitle is a production of Quiet Juice and the Linguistic Society of America. Music by Organized Chaos. Photo by Nola Cox.
A language that survived the boarding schools
September 29, 2021 22:06 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MBGwich’in is among Alaska’s most threatened languages. but Princess Daazhraii Johnson is determined to change that. Her mother, she says, was of "that boarding school generation that was hit for speaking Gwich’in.” Today, more Gwich’in people are learning their language, and kids are exposed to it by shows like PBS’ Molly of Denali. In this episode, Princess Daazhraii talks about the past, present and future of her people’s native tongue. This episode is reported by Kavita Pillay and comes to...
A tale of edible intrigue
July 28, 2021 04:01 - 27 minutes - 38 MBWho writes the fortunes in fortune cookies? Why are so many of them not really fortunes at all? Why did some fortunes turn ominous for a while? (“After today, you shall have a deeper understanding of both good and evil.”) And who was behind the theft of countless fortunes? Lidia Jean Kott has the answers to these questions, and to one more: Where do fortune cookies come from? Hint: It's not China. Music in this episode by Lisa Germano, Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. Photo by Megan Swa...
The pleasure and pain of spelling
June 23, 2021 04:02 - 33 minutes - 46.1 MBWith the Scripps National Spelling Bee back after a Covid-enforced year off, we conduct our very own spelling quiz. Also, Kavita Pillay offers her take on why Indian American kids perform so well in spelling bees. And author and self-described “crummy" speller David Wolman tells us why he wrote a history of English spelling and the many attempts to reform it. Photo of a spelling bee in Fulton, MD, by Howard County Library System via Flickr/Creative Commons. Music in this episode by Cloudli...
We are the people
June 09, 2021 04:02 - 33 minutes - 45.4 MBThe German word "Volk" usually translates as "people," but it means a whole lot more than that. In 1989 as Germans tore down the Berlin Wall, they chanted, "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people!") Today, though, "Volk" no longer unites Germans. Some understand it to mean everyone living in Germany. Others define it along ethnic lines, thereby excluding immigrants. Now with parliamentary elections looming as they did in 2017 when Patrick Cox first reported this, voters are again wondering:...
The little pronoun that could
May 26, 2021 05:01 - 31 minutes - 43.2 MBIn 2012, a children’s book in Sweden sparked a nationwide debate— not about the book’s content but a three-letter word used by the main character. Hen was a relatively new, gender-neutral pronoun which challenged Swedish grammar norms. The use of hen tapped into a conversation the country was already having about gender and equality. Can the introduction of one word make a difference in changing societal views? Nina Porzucki goes to Sweden to find out. Photo by Nina Porzucki. Music by Blue ...
How the alphabet won our hearts
May 12, 2021 05:02 - 25 minutes - 35.2 MBIf you're under the impression that encyclopedias and dictionaries in the West were always organized from A to Z, think again. We have chosen to classify knowledge in many ways, each reflecting the values of the age. Patrick Cox speaks with Judith Flanders, author of A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order about the centuries-long resistance to alphabetization, and why A to Z may now be here to stay. Photo of a dictionary in the Boston Public Library by Trevor Pri...
Japan’s mystery language
April 28, 2021 05:02 - 26 minutes - 36 MBJapan is an ethnically homogenous nation where everyone speaks Japanese, right? Not exactly. Other groups including the Ainu also have called Japan home, perhaps for longer than the Japanese themselves. Today, the Ainu language is spoken by only a handful of people. One of them, Russian-born linguist Anna Bugaeva, takes Patrick Cox to meet Ainu speakers (and non-speakers) on the island of Hokkaido. Along the way, we learn about the mysteries of Ainu, a "language isolate" unrelated to any oth...
The dots and their future
April 14, 2021 05:02 - 26 minutes - 36.7 MBWill technology make Braille obsolete as the primary reading tool for blind people? Will talking apps and audiobooks win out over embossed dots? Braille has been written off before; each time it has come back stronger. We trace Braille from its beginnings in Napoleon's France, through the "War of the Dots" in the early 20th century to the age of the smart phone, and beyond. Photo by Brickset. Music in the episode from Marcel, Blue Dot Sessions, Podington Bear, Cuicuitte and gargle. More on...
The language closest to English
March 31, 2021 05:02 - 33 minutes - 45.5 MBYou 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, ...
My notorious name
March 17, 2021 05:01 - 30 minutes - 41.7 MBDigital 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...
Season 2 is coming
March 11, 2021 05:01 - 2 minutes - 3.89 MBIn 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.
Subtitle presents A Better Life?
September 16, 2020 04:03 - 29 minutes - 41.1 MBHere'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.
We Speak: Tina
August 19, 2020 04:02 - 30 minutes - 42.4 MBTina 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 contributor...
We Speak: Ciku
August 05, 2020 04:03 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MBWhy doesn't Ciku Theuri sound Black? Her friends wanted to know. Eventually, she wanted to know. Ciku tells the story of how she came to speak the way she does—and how others, from Ohio to Kenya, perceive her speech. (Spoiler alert: she does sound Black.) Also in this episode: why many Americans choose the voices of Black celebrities for their digital assistants. This is the third in our four-part series on speech, identity and bias. Ciku Theuri is a producer with WBUR/NPR public radio sho...
We Speak: Verónica
July 22, 2020 04:02 - 20 minutes - 27.6 MBVerónica Zaragovia lives in Miami but she was born in Colombia. Although she has a Colombian passport, her Spanish doesn't sound Colombian— at least that's what people tell her. During a recent stay in Bogotá, she decided to change that: she took lessons in Colombian Spanish. Along the way, she gained a new understanding of how language and identity interact. This is the second in our four-part series on speech and bias. Verónica Zaragovia is a reporter with Miami public radio station, WL...