Consciousness, Poetry, and Bilingual Babies

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In this week’s World in Words podcast, we take a trip inside the mind. Rhitu Chatterjee takes us through some of the recent research into the bilingual brain. Also, theoretical psychologist Nicholas Humphrey gives us his take on consciousness, and why language may be only a small part of it. Then we consider poetry, which offers a bridge between consciousness and language.
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Supermarket French, Chanson French, and Lyrical Arabic

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In this week’s World in Words podcast, the French of Anna Sam and that of Juliette Greco could hardly be more different. Sam records the mendacious and the mundane that she overhears at the supermarket checkout. The French of Greco is moody and melodramatic, as befits this veteran chanteuse. Also, what got lost in translation in one of the UN Security Council’s most famous resolutions. And we hear from the founders of Meena, an Arabic-English bilingual poetry journal.
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Speaking in Tongues and Dreaming in Chinese

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In this week’s World in Words podcast, a PBS documentary follows four students and their families at dual immersion schools in San Francisco. Also, a conversation with Deborah Fallows on living in China and learning Chinese. In Chinese, she says, rude is polite, brusque is intimate. And then there’s the lousy Chinese name she was given. Download MP3

Learning in two languages, and new Zulu words

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In this week’s World in Words podcast, a back-to-school edition about learning in a second language. We have stories about English language learning, Arabic language immersion, and the challenges of one Creole-speaking highschooler in New York City. Plus, the first Zulu-English dictionary in 40 years has just been published in South Africa. Download MP3

How do you say refudiate in Belgian?

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In this week’s World in Words podcast: an Israeli-British study shows bilinguals respond differently depending on the language of the questions; Sarah Palin compares her coinage of new English words to Shakespeare’s; and Clark Boyd’s adventures in linguistically confused Belgium. Download MP3

Bilingual tots and the language of smell

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We hear from a Jerusalem-based journalist who is sending his kid to Arabic/Hebrew bilingual preschool. Also, a Seattle rabbi visits the Cairo Genizah, and explains why so many sacred Jewish texts were written in Arabic. And we hear from experts at the New York Public Library on the secrets that a book’s smell will reveal to an educated nose. Download MP3

Bilingual puns sell meals

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Juan in a Million, Thai Me Up, and Pho Shizzle: reporter Nina Porzucki visits Austin, Texas, where playing with your food has taken on a whole new meaning. Download MP3 (Photo: Nina Porzucki)

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Russia’s national lyricist, Canada’s language laws, and the rehabilitation of a code-breaker

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This week, a look back at the career of the late Sergei Mikhalkov. During World War Two, Mikhalkov wrote the lyrics to the Soviet national anthem. Decades later, he composed the words for Russia’s national anthem– to the same piece of music. Also, a conversation with Keith Spicer on Canada’s 40-year-old language laws. Spicer was the country’s first enforcer of bilingualism. Finally, the British government apologizes for its treatment of Alan Turing, who helped break the Nazis’ war codes.

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Your brain on language

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In this week’s World in Words podcast, a mom-and-pop effort to restore Arabic script to street signs in Israel. Also, author Katherine Russell Rich on learning Hindi at a language school in Rajasthan. Her book “Dreaming in Hindi” is also an investigation into what happens to our brains when we learn a learn a language. Plus, a somewhat shameful expression in Spanish.Download MP3

Banning Hungarian, swearing for pain relief, and dog barks translated

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In the latest World in Words podcast, Patrick Cox and Clark Boyd select their top five language-related stories from July. Among them: Slovakia passes a law banning Hungarian in official communications in some of its Hungarian-speaking regions; new research seeks to show why babies and toddlers are so adept at learning two languages simultaneously; the trangressive nature of swearing helps when it comes to tolerating pain; and Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy has come up with a device that claims to translate dog noises into human language. But do we ready want to know what pooch is saying? Plus, our favorite hated words! Download MP3