Tom Scott: Tom's Language Files

S1 · E1 · 24 May 2013

Why Jonathan Ross Can´t Pronounce His Rs 1. bölüm

S1 · E2 · 31 May 2013

Fantastic Features We Don't Have In The English Language 2. bölüm

S1 · E3 · 7 Haz 2013

All The Colours, Including Grue: How Languages See Colours Differently 3. bölüm

S1 · E4 · 14 Haz 2013

Why You Swear in Anglo-Saxon and Order Fancy Food in French: Registers 4. bölüm

S1 · E5 · 21 Haz 2013

There's Nothing Wrong With Saying "10 Items or Less": Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism 5. bölüm

S1 · E6 · 28 Haz 2013

Ghoti and the Ministry of Helth: Spelling Reform 6. bölüm

S1 · E7 · 5 Tem 2013

Gender Neutral Pronouns: They're Here, Get Used To Them 7. bölüm

S1 · E8 · 12 Tem 2013

Mele Kalikimaka: Why You Can't Say "Christmas" in Hawaiian 8. bölüm

It's not that Hawaiian has a completely different word for Christmas -- it's just that Kalikimaka is the closest that Hawaiian can possibly get to the word Christmas.

S1 · E9 · 4 Ara 2013

Why Do We Have "Ye Olde"? Obsolete Letters, and the Mysteries of Ye Olde Ming 9. bölüm

Why do we say "Ye Olde"? Why is "Menzies" pronounced "Mingis"? To find out, we have to go back into history.

S1 · E10 · 11 Ara 2013

Adjectival Order: Why A "Big Red Balloon", not a "Red Big Balloon"? 10. bölüm

The order of adjectives is one of those wonderful linguistic things that no-one really notices until it's pointed out to them.

S1 · E11 · 17 Ara 2013

Why You Can Tweet More In Japanese: What Counts As A Character? 11. bölüm

Twitter was set up to support 140 characters. And in the English alphabet, that's easy to understand: a character is a letter, number, space or punctuation mark. People more or less agree with computers there. And if it was twenty years ago, that's exactly how the system would work. That far, no further.

S1 · E12 · 20 Ara 2013

Making Flaps Vibrate In Your Throat: Voicing 12. bölüm

There's an interesting thing about English that hardly anyone thinks about. There are two "th" sounds. And if you want to know why it took me twenty-one takes to record this intro, you try switching them round.

S1 · E13 · 21 May 2015

Why Computers Suck At Translation 13. bölüm

Machine translation's a useful tool, don't get me wrong. But if you actually try to use it for regular conversation, it'll fall down really quickly. Why? What makes it so difficult?

S1 · E14 · 28 May 2015

Crash Blossoms and Being Drunk: Ambiguity 14. bölüm

One comma can make a lot of difference. Language is ambiguous -- but in some very specific ways. Here's how.

S1 · E15 · 4 Haz 2015

Why Can't Adults Learn Languages Like Children? 15. bölüm

Kids learn languages really easily, don't they? There's this thing in your brain that just works it out -- but it switches off when you're an adult. Right? Well, maybe. But it's not that simple.

S1 · E16 · 11 Haz 2015

Long and Short Words: Language Typology 16. bölüm

Some languages have longer words than others -- but that's not just a simple choice. There's a lot of different ways to mix up morphemes, even if they all mean the same thing in the end.

S1 · E17 · 18 Haz 2015

What Counts as a Word? 17. bölüm

"Word Count" is going to count plenty of things that aren’t words too -- and it doesn’t get to a more fundamental question: what actually is a word?

S1 · E18 · 15 Tem 2019

why typing like this is sometimes okay. 18. bölüm

Language changes over time, and that's fine. Time for a dose of descriptivism, as the Language Files return.

S1 · E19 · 5 Ağu 2019

Why “No Problem” Can Seem Rude: Phatic Expressions 19. bölüm

"Hello!" "Thank you!" "You're welcome!" These are all phatic expressions, and people can argue about them.

S1 · E20 · 2 Eyl 2019

The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don't 20. bölüm

The International Phonetic Alphabet: one sound for each symbol, and one symbol for each sound. Except for the sounds we can't make.

S1 · E21 · 2 Ara 2019

Can The Words You Read Change Your Behavior? 21. bölüm

"Priming" is the idea that the words you read can change the way you act. And yes, there are papers that show an effect: but we also need to talk about the Replication Crisis.

S1 · E22 · 23 Ara 2019

Why Do We Move Our Hands When We Talk? 22. bölüm

Gestures are a really important part of language. But how do we use them, and why?

S1 · E23 · 17 Şub 2020

The Sentences Computers Can't Understand, But Humans Can 23. bölüm

The Winograd schema is a language test for intelligent computers. So far, they're not doing well.

S1 · E24 · 13 Nis 2020

Abso-b████y-lutely: Expletive Infixation 24. bölüm

There are rules in the English language that you've probably never been taught, but you know anyway: how to split apart words with "infixes". But you've never been taught it because some of those infixes are words you probably shouldn't use in front of your high school English teachers...

S1 · E25 · 4 May 2020

The Hidden Rules of Conversation 25. bölüm

Gricean Maxims are a vital part of how we understand each other: a set of... well, maybe "rules" is a bit strong. They're guidelines that we follow without realising it. And it's the reason that "asbestos-free cereal" sounds suspicious.

S1 · E26 · 25 May 2020

Ə: The Most Common Vowel in English 26. bölüm

"Schwa" is the most common vowel in English. Every English speaker uses it, all the time, but most people have never heard of it.

S1 · E27 · 24 Ağu 2020

Which Is "Bouba", and Which Is "Kiki"? 27. bölüm

Sooner or later, I was going to get around to this: it's one of the most famous experiments in linguistics.

S1 · E28 · 19 Eki 2020

It’s pronounced GIF. 28. bölüm

Is there a "right" way to pronounce it? And why is it so complicated?

S1 · E29 · 7 Ara 2020

How Many Languages Are There? 29. bölüm

The answer is, of course, a bit more complicated than you might think.

S1 · E30 · 22 Mar 2021

Why Shakespeare Could Never Have Been French 30. bölüm

Shakespeare sounds a certain way. Why? And why could it only work in English?

S1 · E31 · 18 Eyl 2023

How languages steal words from each other 31. bölüm

This is the only pirate reference you're getting from me.

S1 · E32 · 16 Eki 2023

there’dn’t’ve 32. bölüm

This script was a nightmare to pronounce.

S1 · E33 · 6 Kas 2023

Does the language you speak change how you think? 33. bölüm

No. Mostly.