113: Why "it's a diglossia!" explains so many social dynamics
From Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne
February 20, 2026 · 49 min
About this episode
The episode explores the concept of diglossia and its implications in social dynamics and multilingualism.
In some communities, everyone regularly uses two languages or varieties according to the social situation, with one of them being more prestigious (and more likely to be written down) than the other. This particular kind of multilingualism is known as a diglossia. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about diglossia! We talk about why diglossia is the answer to so many questions Gretchen gets asked at parties, what "high" and "low" versions of a language have to do with mountains, where the four "classic" cases of diglossia come from (Arabic, Greek, Haitian, and Swiss), and how at least some of them might not be diglossias anymore. We also talk about whether there are new diglossias emerging (French? English???) and how to tell if you might be in a diglossia. Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjI2OTg5MjkwMw Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/809025308745416704/transcript-episode-113-why-its-a-diglossia Announcements: The LingComm grants are running in 2026! If you're working on sharing linguistics concepts…
People in this episode
Hosts: Gretchen McCulloch, Lauren Gawne
Topics covered
- diglossia
- multilingualism
- social dynamics
- language prestige
- language varieties
- linguistics
Keywords
- diglossia
- multilingualism
- language prestige
- social dynamics
- linguistics
- high and low language
- language varieties
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Arabic, Greek, Haitian, Swiss, French, English
More episodes of Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
- 116: Cross-cultural communication (in space!) · May 22, 2026 · 32 min
- 115: The long shadow of Daisy Bates with This Guy Sucked · April 17, 2026 · 1h 1m
- 114: Begonia, average coral, and sea pink - Defining colour terms with Kory Stamper · March 20, 2026 · 54 min
- 112: When language become-s(3SG) linguistic example-s(PL) · January 15, 2026 · 49 min
- 111: Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!! · December 19, 2025 · 51 min
- 110: The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate · November 20, 2025 · 1h 1m
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics podcast page.