In this episode, I am excited to talk with Dr. Elaine Gold, a remarkable Canadian linguist and founder of the Canadian Language Museum. Dr Gold is truly a national treasure of Canada, whose work highlights the beauty and diversity of Canada’s linguistic heritage. I have admired her work for years!

We discuss her journey leading her to linguistics, creating the Canadian Language Museum, why documenting language matters, and how language connects us to culture and identity. If you love accents, history, and stories about how people speak, this episode offers inspiring perspectives you will not want to miss.

🔗 Learn more about the Canadian Language Museum here: https://languagemuseum.ca

Thank you ever so much, Elaine!

In this episode of Linguistics Now, I speak with Professor Adrian Leemann of the University of Bern — a leading scholar in sociophonetics and dialectology.
Together, we explore how dialects evolve in our increasingly mobile and digital world, what our voices reveal about identity, and how linguistic diversity continues to shape the way we connect.

Having lived and worked in several countries, Professor Leemann brings a uniquely international perspective to language variation and change.
As my PhD supervisor, he has also been a guiding influence on my own research journey - making this conversation both personal and deeply insightful.

His latest books that we discuss are:

• Dialäktatlas: 1950 bis heute
• An Introduction to Forensic Phonetics and Forensic Linguistics

Thank you so much, Adrian! What an amazing discussion we have had - enjoy it!

My guest for this episode is the fantastic Sam Kirkham!

Sam Kirkham is senior lecturer in the Phonetics Lab, Department of Linguistics and English Language and Data Science Institute at Lancaster University. He is also associate editor at Journal of Phonetics.

His research investigates the dynamics of spoken language, such as how people coordinate movements of the tongue, lips and larynx to produce speech. Sam does experiments that monitor vocal tract movements using sensors and imaging technology, and build computational models of the cognitive and physical mechanisms that underpin spoken language.

He is currently working on the following projects:

• Interpretable acoustic-articulatory relations in speech production (Royal Society, 2025-27)
• Modelling the dynamics of phonetic variation & phonological change (AHRC fellowship, 2024-25)
• TARDIS: Targets and dynamics in speech (AHRC, 2019-23)

You can read more of his extensive work here.

Thank you so much, Sam!