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Podcast: Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast
Episode: From f#ck to microorganism – why do words sound the way they do? - Dr Shiri Lev-Ari
Description: One of the characteristics of language is that there is no relationship between the way that words sound and their meaning. For example, there is nothing window-like about the word window, and it is named with completely different sounds in other languages, from fenêtre in French to shubak in Arabic. In this talk, I will discuss cases where the sounds of words are not arbitrary. I will start by showing what characterises the sounds of swear words across the world’s languages. I will then discuss which languages have more words whose sounds express their meaning, and why tha...