As 2025 ticks out its final hours, here’s one last episode of ALILI for the year, and it’s buonissimo! Journalist, author, content creator and linguist Sophia Smith Galer joins me to share the love for Italian. Our conversation has a focus on the sociolinguistic dynamics of Italian, namely how this national language fits into the lives of speakers up and down the peninsula, and how it might be harming the other languages of Italy in the process. Sophia also shares her personal relationship with Italian, as a ‘heritage language’ of hers that she is now working to promote in London.

Support the language-loving mission by joining the ALILI Patreon here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/ALanguageILoveIs⁠⁠

Sophia’s splendid website: ⁠https://www.sophiasmithgaler.com/⁠

Pre-order How to Kill a Language here: ⁠https://www.sophiasmithgaler.com/how-to-kill-a-language⁠

Sample of Italian (by speaker Sebastiano) from here: ⁠https://wikitongues.org/videos/sebastiano_20131103_ita/⁠

Host: Dr. Danny Bate

Guest: Sophia Smith Galer

Audio Mixing and Mastering: Jeremiah McPadden

Music: Acoustic Guitar by William King

Artwork: Willow Marler

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'Hi, I'm Old Norse specialist Dr. Jackson Crawford' – so begin the YouTube videos with the smooth-talking, stetson-wearing scholar, discussing ancient languages in the scenic Rocky Mountains. To pay Jackson back for having me on ⁠his channel⁠ three times (most recently ⁠here⁠), I gladly hosted him on ALILI. Hence, this forty-second episode is all about Old Norse – what it is, who spoke it, where it came from, and what it became.

Support the language-loving mission by joining the ALILI Patreon here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/ALanguageILoveIs⁠⁠

Get your copy of the translated Poetic Edda here: ⁠https://hackettpublishing.com/the-poetic-edda-expanded-second-edition⁠

Jackson's YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@JacksonCrawford⁠

Host: Dr. Danny Bate

Guest: Dr. Jackson Crawford

Audio Mixing and Mastering: Jeremiah McPadden

Music: Acoustic Guitar by William King

Artwork: Willow Marler

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hot on the heels of Episode 40 (American Sign Language with Aidan Elliott-McCrea), I can release a special episode of ALILI, showcasing the audio edition of my new book! 'Why Q Needs U: A history of our letters and how we use them' was published on October 2nd, before which I undertook both its writing and its narrating as an audiobook. For this special, I've been given the first chapter of that audiobook (Chapter A) to share with you. It kicks off the story of the alphabet in Egypt, then takes you as far as the islands of Greece. The full audiobook is widely available on popular platforms like Spotify and ⁠Audible⁠. If you give it a listen, do let me know!

Official link to the book here: ⁠https://geni.us/WhyQNeedsU⁠

More info and reviews here: ⁠https://dannybate.com/book/⁠

Support the language-loving mission by joining the ALILI Patreon here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/ALanguageILoveIs⁠⁠⁠

Host: Dr. Danny Bate

Music: Acoustic Guitar by William King

Artwork: Willow Marler

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.