The Age of Humans: Recent Episodes
Liudas Karalius and Ștefan Paiu
There are some aspects of our everyday lives that are so deeply woven into the fabric of our society, that we rarely get to think about their origin, question their future or consider their implications. Does clothing fashion have a clear direction of development throughout history? What music will dominate charts in 2050? Will we all ultimately speak one language? But let's not rush ahead of ourselves. Let's take it apart together, one question at a time, within The Age of Humans.
What is the best language? As one of our guests noted, this is a dangerous question to ask. But we went on and did it anyway.
Of course, not without context. So what is the best language… to learn if you are a monolingual aspiring businessman? What about a politician? Which ones would help you learn all the following with ease? Which language just sounds right? These scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg in what the last episode of our first season is.
Today, together with all five of our guests, we attempt to give you a solid ground upon which you could base your own thinking, when answering the question "Which language next?"
Get ready for a special episode, like none other, filled with surprises! For more details about our guests, check out the description of previous episodes, where you can also find extra information and useful links regarding their work. Special thanks to Misha for our visuals, to Josh and Arnau for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page, Josh's YouTube channel and Arnau’s YouTube channel.
The language map of the World, although sometimes looking static, is very fluid. Languages mix and override one another constantly and in this episode we talk about the soldiers that have fallen in this battle - the dead languages. But what does it really mean for a language to be... dead? Is this bad? Is it worth reviving languages? And how does one go about this revival? Tune in to learn all about that for a discussion with our guest Gregory Anderson.
Check the up-and-running Living Dictionaries app, where anyone can create your own language resources. If you have someone you know who speaks an endangered language - let them know about this! For those of you who would like to aid the cause of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, visit their website. For more of their content, visit their social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) or YouTube channel.
Special thanks to Misha for our visuals and Josh for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page and Josh's YouTube channel.
Have you ever wondered how to be more engaging in a conversation? What influences the way we communicate with others? What can we do to understand the other better? Answers to all these questions can be found in this episode. We will look at interpersonal communication with the help of a top expert in the field, Antoni Lacinai. He is a global speaker, working specifically on workplace communication, managing to gather in his 25 years of experience plenty of hints to share with you!
For those of you who want to read more of Antoni's work: Antoni's Website
Antoni's latest book
Antoni's Instagram
Special thanks to Misha for our visuals and Josh for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page and Josh's YouTube channel.
A Russian, an Italian and a Brit walk into a bar. What language do they speak? What language would they have spoken 500 years ago? What language are they most likely to speak in 2070? Lingua franca is where languages meet politics and power relations. In this episode, together with our guest Tomasz Kamusella, we will take a look into the history and the possible futures of the global landscape of lingua francas - the languages that allow us to function as a global society.
For those of you interested in these topics, you are kindly invited to read Tom's articles.
Special thanks to Misha for our visuals and Josh for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page and Josh's YouTube channel.
For our second episode, we prepared a cultural cocktail. We added a bit of sweet, a bit of sour at times, but most of it it's quite spicy. This is a cultural trip around the world, and, we hope, a guide to understand people and cultures better. Tom Verghese is our guest today and he will share with us meaningful insight from his over 25 years of experience working across cultures.
For those of you who want to read more of Tom's work:
Tom on Twitter
Tom on LinkedIn
Tom on Youtube
Cultural Synergies
Special thanks to Misha for our visuals and Josh for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page and Josh's YouTube channel.
In our first ever episode we explore the question of how language influences thought. We chose to cover this topic suspecting it would be super interesting for us to research on and for you to listen to. Little did we know, about all the drama that revolves around these questions... Interesting it was. And not only interesting, but truly rather thrilling. I hope listening to what came out of it will feel likewise.
For those of you who want to read more of Guillaume's work:
The English language is the world’s Achilles heel
Life's purpose rests in our mind's spectacular drive to extract meaning from the world
The power of language: We translate our thoughts into words but words also affect the way we think
Neurolinguistic Relativity: How Language Flexes Human Perception and Cognition
Unconscious effects of language-specific terminology on preattentive color perception
Back to the future? How Chinese-English bilinguals switch between front and back orientation for time
Special thanks to Misha for our visuals and Josh for our music! To find more of their work, visit Misha's Etsy page and Josh's YouTube channel.
Humans would be nowhere near the level of civilization we are currently in if not for our ability to store and share information. In the acknowledgement of this human superpower, we present to you our very first season titled "Languages & Communication", where we will try to answer some very fundamental questions on the topic.
For episode updates and extra content, follow us on Instagram at ageofhumans.
Welcome to The Age of Humans - an open door into the past and the future and far away lands, the door through which all of that spills into your everyday life while you’re having a cup of coffee, commuting, running, fishing or whatever crazy stuff you’re into. But who are we and what will you get from listening to us? We're a couple of friends interested in the culture of us, humans. Think anything from geography to technology, from history to futurism. We produce this podcast as an excuse to learn about the World we live in and for you - the tool to do it.Follow us for new episodes that air every two weeks!