Future Tongues

Speaking Your Identity (Kiezdeutsch pt. 2) | Heike Wiese

November 15, 2020 Episode 2
Future Tongues
Speaking Your Identity (Kiezdeutsch pt. 2) | Heike Wiese
Show Notes

Language isn't just a matter of cramming our ideas into a rigid grammar, vocalizing our words, and then voilà, meaning signaled, job done — no, not quite. More than just a convenient communication utility, language informs ourselves — and others — about who we are, a truth that is as existential as it is abstract, and one that Aaron examines in this episode with Heike Wiese, a professor of linguistics at Humboldt University of Berlin, who is among the world's leading researchers in Kiezdeutsch. The two discuss Germany's myth (and reality) of a "standard" national language, multilingualism in Germany, the culture around Kiezdeutsch, and how some Germans look at — or down on — the multiethnolect and its speakers.