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The Allusionist

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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 202: Singlish Singlish

October 29, 2024 The Allusionist

There's so much more to say about Singlish after last episode that we're saying some more of it this episode. Poet and academic Gwee Li Sui, author of Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to how Singaporeans Communicate, describes the resistance he received in Singapore when he published Singlish translations of literary works - and why they are important and celebratory for Singlish. And Stacey Mei Yan Fong, baker and author of 50 Pies, 50 States, explains how the language that used to be embarrassing for her is now a huge comfort.

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In episodes Tags Gwee Li Sui, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good Mantarin Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, The Little Prince, Animal Farm, George Orwell, Brothers Grimm, Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne, Speaking Singlish, particles, suffixes, translation, translator, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Chinese, Milo, military, army, rhymes, NYT, the New York Times, jobbery

Allusionist 201: Singlish

October 10, 2024 The Allusionist

"If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” says Bibek Gurung, a former linguist who grew up in Singapore speaking Singlish with his family and friends, while schools and the government tried to quash it. "Language is a fundamental human skill. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill really does a number to your self esteem and your abilities to communicate in general."

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In episodes Tags history, lexicon, Helen Zaltzman, society, culture, words, language, vocabulary, Bibek Gurung, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good English Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, policy, oppression, swearing, swears, punishment, school, portmanteaus, portmanteaux, mother tongue, Manglish, Malaysia, Straits, Tamil, Malay, Mandarin, China, Chinese, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, dialects, creole languages, opsimath, code switching, English problematic fave

Allusionist 189. Mouthful of Fortune

February 8, 2024 The Allusionist

At Lunar New Year, certain foods are particularly lucky to eat. Why? Because in Chinese, their names are puns on fortunate things. Damn, maybe noodles are all it takes to get me into puns after all... Professor Miranda Brown, cultural historian of China specialising in food and drink, explains the wordplay foods of new year, and why names are so resonant in Chinese.

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In episodes Tags China, Asia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Chinese, Lunar New Year, New Year, Spring Festival, festivities, food, eating, luck, lucky, homophones, homonyms, puns, word play, Miranda Brown, lettuce, fish, citrus, sticky rice, dumplings, fortune, numbers, numerology, censorship, river crab, whim-wham

Allusionist 164. Emergency

November 7, 2022 The Allusionist

When is a war not a war? When the British Empire called it an 'emergency' so they didn't have to abide by wartime rules or lose their insurance payouts. Artist and journalist Sim Chi Yin reflects on the Malayan Emergency, a 12-year conflict that doesn't get talked about much now by either side; and historian Charlotte Lydia Riley considers the various reasons why the British opted for the term 'emergency', and why they don't celebrate even when they supposedly won them.

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In audio Tags history, emergency, Sim Chi Yin, Charlotte Lydia Riley, Asia, Malaya, Malayan Emergency, Malaysia, Malay, China, Chinese, Singapore, Borneo, Britain, British Empire, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, World War Two, Second World War, war, warfare, fighting, conflict, imperialism, colonial, colonisation, decolonization, guerrilla, terrorist, terrorism, communists, communism, cold war, Kenya, Mau Mau, Vietnam, Vietnam war, Mỹ Lai Massacre, Korean War, Korea, uprising, rebellion, independence, Operation Legacy, Geneva Convention, war crimes, new villages, translation, transliteration, euphemisms, prosopopoeia

Allusionist 153. In Character

April 15, 2022 The Allusionist

Chinese is one of the oldest still-spoken languages in the world. But when technologies arrived like telegraphy and computing, designed with the Roman alphabet in mind, if Chinese wanted to be able to participate then it had to choose between adapting, or paying a heavy price. And sometimes both were inevitable. Jing Tsu, author of Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern, recounts how Chinese contended with obstacles like alphabetisation, Romanisation and standardisation.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, Jing Tsu, Chinese, China, Asia, ideographic, characters, writing, alphabet, alphabetisation, alphabetization, standardisation, Romanisation, Roman alphabet, Latin alphabet, homophones, tones, telegraphy, telegraph, typography, typing, type, Morse code, computers, binary, computer programming, ASCII, coding, printing press, Wade-Giles, Pinyin, Danes, Portuguese, Doomsday Book, Mao Zedong, Zhao Yuanren, Communists, Nationalists, Taiwan, Japan, Sino-Japanese War, Qing, missionaries, Opium War, Ideographic Research Group, Unicode, names, lions, antanaclasis, rale

Allusionist 55: Namaste

May 5, 2017 The Allusionist

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder wants people to stop saying 'namaste' after a yoga session.

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In episodes Tags Sanskrit, yoga, India, words, language, history, Britain, colonialism, USA, gurus, counterculture, cultural appropriation, fitness, exercise, Hrishikesh Hirway, Song Exploder, Song Explusionist, The West Wing Weekly, Jim Mallinson, Andrea Jain, namaste, namaskar, hello, greetings, Asia
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Featured
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
queer playlist
Allusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-Bomb
Allusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-Bomb
feed bullshit
Allusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Ffff
Allusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Ffff
WhatsApp Image 2025-04-27 at 23.06.37.jpeg
several bits of news! (nothing bad)
Allusionist 207: Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary
Allusionist 207: Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary
Allusionist 206. Bonus 2024
Allusionist 206. Bonus 2024
A Christmas Carollusionist
A Christmas Carollusionist
Allusionist 205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog
Allusionist 205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog
Festivelusionists
Allusionist 204. Lexicat, part 1
Allusionist 204. Lexicat, part 1
Allusionist 203. Flyting
Allusionist 203. Flyting
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.