Slate Debates
A feed from the Slate podcast network featuring episodes with enlightening conversations, opposing views, and plenty of healthy disputes. You'll get a curated selection of episodes from programs like What Next, The Waves, and the Political Gabfest, with deep discussions that go beyond point-counterpoint and shed light on the issues that matter most.
151
The Wide World of Language Diversity
Exploring Black American Sign Language and regional grammar.
24 min
152
Double Dutch
How popular online language-learning tool Duolingo is taking people around the world via technology.
35 min
153
How the Grid Kid Became King of the Online Spel...
The New York Times’ Sam Ezersky breaks down how he adjudicates the Spelling Bee.
29 min
154
Sponsored: How Can We Improve Our Communication...
30 min
155
TikTok Language Rabbit Hole
TikTok and Reddit are great places to observe language.
26 min
156
Taking Home the Gold in Language
How language made an appearance in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.
25 min
157
They Might Be Linguists
Slate’s new language podcast talks to John Linnell of They Might Be Giants about his new project in an unexpected language.
26 min
158
Russian Is My Mt. Everest
A grueling, painful, lifelong joy of studying Russian was sparked by Anna Karenina.
35 min
159
Languages of Northern Africa
From vowelless words to complex poetry, Berber to Somali.
41 min
160
You're Gonna Hafta
Deconstructing a single line of dialogue from Netflix's "The Crown."
42 min
161
The Languages of Southeast Asia
Why are so many of the languages of Southeast Asia "like Chinese"?
36 min
162
Irregardless Make You Cringe? Relax.
English is full of redundancies—so why are we bothered by only a select few?
37 min
163
Nine Nasty Words
John McWhorter teases his new book about off-color English expressions, starting with c!#k.
36 min
164
The Invisible Complexities of Translation
A single word—take "self," for example—reveals the thorny nature of literary translation.
42 min
165
English Is Plain Weird
Don't be fooled into thinking that English is a typical language. It's not.
40 min
166
Subject-Verb-Object. Right?
For many languages, the idea that the subject belongs up front is plain backwards.
39 min
167
Parting Company
How did a word meaning "with bread" come to sprout its corporate connotation?
40 min
168
Wallowing in Negativity
From the evolution of ain't to double negatives, simply saying no is wonderfully complex.
42 min
169
Fossil Hunting in English
Our language contains a trove of buried clues, petrified remnants of its past. But you have to know where to dig.
41 min
170
Why Do Languages Have Gender?
Lots of languages divide words into categories, like male and female. How does that happen?
52 min
171
Forgetting Your Roots
Words have a way of rebelling against their etymological parents, acquiring meanings of their own.
55 min
172
Future English Speaker, Can You Read Me?
That language changes is certain. How quickly or slowly is another matter.
62 min
173
Getting Got
The story of how one little verb developed a seemingly endless capacity to absorb new meanings.
40 min
174
On the Origin of English
A controversial theory holds that English, along with other Germanic languages, was profoundly influenced early on by Phoenician. The evidence is intriguing.
57 min
175
White Author, Black English. Problem?
Mark Twain famously depicted what he called the "Missouri Negro dialect" of Jim. Would that be acceptable today?
52 min