A podcast about languages and the people who speak them.
Neighbors in eastern Ukraine are splitting between those who support Ukraine’s government and separatists who want to join with Russia. And if you listen carefully to the insults they are hurling back and forth, you can hear the echoes of history.
Last week, Toronto Star reporter Mitch Potter was approached by a group of angry Pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Ukraine town of Slovyansk. He thought he was going to be kidnapped as a foreign journalist. Then, he spoke French.
Language editor Patrick Cox can’t decide between three Chinese names given to him by Chinese friends and colleagues. The first uses clever wordplay, the second adheres to fortune telling conventions, and the third looks and sounds majestic.
Between them, Randy Kaplan and Zoltan Marian have collected more than 2000 autographs of heads of states, royals and popes. They share a kind of ethical code, but differ when it comes to who will they include in their collections.