Podcasts

The big list of podcasts about language and linguistics!

  • Podcasts are ordered alphabetically by title.
  • The posting frequency does not include bonus episodes.
  • Email me if I’ve overlooked any podcasts!

(last updated February 9, 2023)

Accentricity

This is a podcast about people and how they talk. About why there is no such thing as bad grammar, no language is more important than any other language, and every voice is valid.

Cover artwork for the Allusionist podcast. The words "The Allusionist" are spelled out on a 4x4 grid using Boggle dice.

Allusionist

Adventures in language with Helen Zaltzman.

Cover artwork for the animalogy podcast. Features a large image of Colleen Patrick-Goudreau smiling at the camera, and the title of the podcast decorated with stylized animals around the letters.

Animalogy

ANIMALOGY is a podcast about language, the animal-related words and phrases we use every day, and how they reflect and affect our relationship with animals. Hosted by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, bestselling author, long-time podcaster, and self-proclaimed zoolinguaphile, Animalogy will change the way you talk—and think—about animals. For show notes and more, visit animalogypodcast.com.

  • Frequency: varies
  • Dates: December 2016 – March 2020
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)
Podcast cover for the Because Language podcast. Features the words "Because Language" in bright yellow, all capital letters, zooming upwards on a bright blue background. Very retro.

Because Language

(previously Talk the Talk)

Because Language is a podcast about linguistics, the science of language. Linguists Daniel Midgley and Hedvig Skirgård — and smart person Ben Ainslie — tackle topics like language change, language and society, language technology, and of course the dreaded Words of the Week.

"Bunny Trails" written in cursive lettering against an outline of bunny ears, in white, against a light green background.

Bunny Trails

Welcome to our whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase. Each week, we delve into the origins of phrases to find out how they came into the English language. We tell the story of how the phrase got from its beginnings to where it is today. Shauna and Dan are two big nerds, so expect some geek culture references, random trivia facts, and loads of laughs!

Cover art for the Conlangery podcast, featuring words in various scripts arranged around the podcast title, on a dark purple background.

Conlangery

Conlangery is the podcast for language creators and enthusiasts of constructed languages. We cover conlangs, natural languages, and linguistics topics in order to share techniques and inspiration with the community.

Cover artwork for the en clair podcast, featuring the title in red fixed-width font against a reddish corkboard-like background.

en clair

en clair is a podcast about forensic linguistics, literary detection, language mysteries, cryptography, codes, language and the law, linguistic crime, undeciphered languages, and more, from past to present.

Podcast cover for the Endless Knot podcast. Features the title in a font that looks like it's from a colonial manuscript, with a banner image of various characters in a medieval painting. Bottom left and right are images of the podcast hosts.

Endless Knot

Aven & Mark discuss etymology, history, literature, language, and cocktails, and the sometimes surprising connections between them all.

Cover artwork for the podcast "Fiat Lex", featuring the title in yellow lettering against a leather background.

Fiat Lex

Love words? Then you probably love dictionaries, those great guardians of English, hallowed and revered, unchanging as eternity. Ha, just kidding! Dictionaries are living, breathing documents that record a living, breathing language, and which are created by living, breathing nerds. Join two of those nerds–authors and lexicographers Kory Stamper and Steve Kleinedle—as they accompany you down the absurdist log-flume ride of the English language, the dictionaries that chronicle it, and the dorks who dare do such derring-do (lexically speaking).

Cover artwork for the Field Notes podcast. A white line drawing of a globe on a black background.

Field Notes

A podcast about linguistic fieldwork, where seasoned fieldworkers share their stories from the field of language documentation & description.

Cover artwork for the Grammar Girl podcast. Features a bright orange background, the title in white lettering at the top, and a carton of the host with a pencil behind her ear, wearing glasses, with long brown hair in a ponytail, wearing a green top over a white collared shirt.

Grammar Girl

Five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing and feed your love of the English language. Whether English is your first language or your second language, these grammar, punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer. Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast.

Podcast cover for the History & Philosophy of the Language Sciences podcast. Black and white, featuring line drawings of a man in woman in formal wear sitting in chairs chatting with each other.

History & Philosophy of the Language Sciences

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences explores the history of the study of language in its varied social and cultural contexts.

History of English

The podcast was designed as a chronological historical narrative presenting the story of the language in conjunction with the people, places and events that shaped and influenced the evolution of the language. 

Podcast cover artwork for the Kletsheads podcast. The title is in black text on a bright green background, with small speech bubbles popping out from the title.

Kletsheads

Kletsheads [English edition] is a podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists. What can you expect if you’re raising your children bilingually? What’s important? What will help your children’s language development and what won’t? In each episode, Dr. Sharon Unsworth, linguist and mother of two children (both bilingual, of course), discusses the science behind the language development of bilingual children with another expert. Along the way, there are practical tips, we hear from children about what it’s like growing up with two or more languages, and we talk to parents and professionals about their experiences with bilingual children. This is a separate English-language edition of the Dutch-language episode, Kletsheads.

Language Creation Society

The LCS Podcast, for all intents and purposes, is no longer being maintained. This blog will remain up indefinitely for historical purposes, but there will be no new content.

Languagehat

  • Frequency:
  • Dates:
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • Website

Let’s Talk Talk

Anything language goes! Let’s Talk Talk is a Pop-linguistics based discussion podcast where the goal is easy consumption of language topics in a fun way for folks who aren’t language scientists.

  • Frequency: weekly
  • Dates: January – September 2017
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)

Lexicon Valley

A podcast about language with host John McWhorter.

Cover art for the Lexitecture podcast. It's not very interesting, just the word "Lexitecture" in a speech bubble, half red, half blue, on a blue background.

Lexitecture

A Canadian (Ryan) and a Scot (Amy) talking about the words in the English language that fascinate them most at the moment, looking at their histories and origins and trying to piece together just how they got to where they are today.

This is a podcast for anyone interested in etymology (the study of words and their origins/history). If you’ve ever found yourself happier after discovering some bizarre bit of trivia about a word that you hadn’t even given a second thought to (such as how the word ‘trivia’ relates to its Latin components meaning “three roads”), this might just be the podcast for you.

Ling Space

The Ling Space is dedicated to bringing you varied, accessible, and up-to-date content and discussion about linguistics and other language topics.

Cover art for the Lingthusiasm podcast. Features a symbol that looks similar to a glottal stop, in white, against a bright green background.

Lingthusiasm

A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. A weird and deep conversation about language delivered right to your ears the third Thursday of every month. “Joyously nerdy” ~ Buzzfeed

Linguism

  • Frequency:
  • Dates:
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)

Linguistics

  • Frequency:
  • Dates:
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)

Linguistics After Dark

Linguistics After Dark is a podcast where three linguists (and sometimes other people) answer your burning questions about language, linguistics, and whatever else you need advice about. We have three rules: any question is fair game, there’s no research allowed, and if we can’t answer, we have to drink.

Linguistics Everyday

Bringing linguistics concepts into the everyday!

Linguistics with Laura

This podcast series will highlight some of the most important aspects of linguistics. Over the span of numerous episodes, we’ll discuss topics such as the definition of linguistics, history of the English language, word structure, speech sounds, grammar, meaning, sentence structure, and more. If you’re interested in learning more about language but don’t have oodles of free time, this series will introduce you to the beauty of linguistics in short and sweet light-hearted episodes.

Multilinguish

Not multilingual, but language curious? Explore how language connects us all — from the producers at the language-learning app Babbel. Listen and subscribe today.

  • Frequency: every two weeks
  • Dates: February 2019 – April 2021
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)

Origin of Speakcies

The podcast about the history and stories behind the words we read, write, and speak everyday.

Re:Verb

re:verb is a podcast focused on how rhetoric, communication, and language shape contemporary politics and culture.

Slavstvuyte!

A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages.

Spectacular Vernacular

Linguist Nicole Holliday and Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer discuss the ways language is changing, talk to scholars and writers, and set and solve word puzzles.

Speculative Grammarian

Speech Science Podcast

A podcast dedicated to answering the question: What is Communication? Marie, Matt, Michelle, Michael, and Rachel are all licensed and certified Speech and Language Pathologists. They break down the latest in Speech and Language Therapy, interview leaders in the field, and apply evidence-based practice to their discussions.

Subtext

(sub)Text is a podcast about the human condition, and what we can learn about it from the greatest inventions of the human imagination: fiction, film, drama, poetry, essays, and criticism. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh explore life’s big questions by conducting a close reading of a text or film and co-writing an audio essay about it in real time.

Cover art for the Subtitle podcast. Features the title in orange, surrounded by stylized lips also in orange, against a deep blue background.

Subtitle

Language 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.

Talk the Talk

Talk the Talk is RTRFM’s weekly show about linguistics, the science of language. Linguists Daniel Midgley and Hedvig Skirgård and smart person Ben Ainslie tackle language change, language tech, new words, society, minority languages, language and the mind, and much more.

That’s What They Say

That’s What They Say is a weekly segment on Michigan Radio that explores our changing language. Each week University of Michigan English Professor Anne Curzan will discuss why we say what we say with Michigan Radio Weekend Edition host Rebecca Kruth.

Theory Neutral

A podcast about Stuff Languages Do, covering typology and descriptive grammars from a theory-neutral perspective (or at least, as close as we can get!)

  • Frequency: monthly
  • Dates: April 2022 – present
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google
  • (no website)
Cover art for the Tongue Unbroken podcast. A black background with the title in dark yellow text. On the top and bottom are Mayan hieroglyphs and other symbols, also in dark yellow.

Tongue Unbroken

The Tongue Unbroken (Tlél Wudakʼóodzi Ḵaa Lʼóotʼ) is a podcast about Native American language revitalization and decolonization, as seen through the eyes and mind of a multilingual Indigenous person who is Lingít, Haida, Yupʼik and Sami. This podcast explores complex concepts of identity, resilience, erasure, and genocide and features guests involved in language revitalization and decolonial efforts in Alaska, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. This show hopes to connect to all audiences who wish to understand how over five hundred languages Indigenous to North America became endangered, and what actions individuals and groups have taken and can take to create a more equitable and brilliant future than that of American genocide.

Very Bad Words

Very Bad Words is a podcast created by producer Matt Fidler about our complex relationship with swearing and taboo language. 

Vocal Fries

The podcast about linguistic discrimination. Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa. Carrie: I’m Carrie Gillon. Megan: Carrie, a lot of things have been happening on Latinate Twitter that I have to share with you.

Way with Words

A Way with Words is an American weekly public radio program discussing the use of language in everyday life, along with linguistics, lexicology and folk etymology from a pool of listener questions from weekly callers into the program, along with a weekly word game with quiz expert and comedian John Chaneski.

Weekly Linguist

A weekly interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them. Topics include specific languages, language families, unique structures. It’s upbeat, informative, and fun for linguists and language-lovers everywhere!

Word for Word

In Word for Word, we explore the surprising histories behind everyday words and phrases, go behind the scenes with the dictionary editors, and meet some of Australia’s most interesting word-lovers, from Scrabble champions to hip-hop artists.

Word of Mouth

Series exploring the world of words and the ways in which we use them.

  • Frequency: weekly
  • Dates: May 2015 – present
  • (no website)
  • Listen: Spotify | Apple | Google

Word Matters

Word Matters is a show for readers, writers, and anyone who’s curious about the English language. Join Merriam-Webster editors as they challenge supposed grammar rules, and reveal the surprising origins.

Word to the Whys

Word to the Whys, the podcast where linguists talk about why we do linguistics. Created and produced by TILCoP Canada. Use this home page to access all episodes as a playlist, or use the menu at the top right to find links to individual episodes with transcripts.

Word Up

The diverse languages of black Australia from Anmatyerre to Arrernte, from Bidjara to Bundjalung, from Nyungar to Ngaanyatjarra, from Yankunytjatjara to Yorta Yorta — one word at a time.

Words for Granted

Launched in 2016, Words for Granted is one of the longest-running etymology and linguistics podcasts.

World in Words

The World in Words podcast is about languages and the people who speak them. Hosted by The World’s Patrick Cox and Nina Porzucki.

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