1349: Valerie Fridland | Why We Talk Funny and What Our Voices Reveal

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. what people hear as beautiful languages or beautiful accents The research is really fascinating because there is some truth to the fact that certain sounds are more appealing to us just intrinsically. There are certain sounds that are more beautiful to us. But generally speaking, what really is driving our attitudes towards what's a beautiful language and what's not is our familiarity with that language. So the more familiar a language is or an accent is, the more we tend to like it, but also our beliefs about the speakers of those languages.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs. Athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional drug trafficker, rocket scientist, or Hollywood filmmaker. If you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode Starter Packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation. Psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more, that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan Harbinger dot com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, your accent is not just how you talk, it's a resume, a passport, a class marker, a trust signal, and in one insane case, the difference between your going to prison and actually your honor, this guy's from Boston. Our guest today is Valer Friedland, linguist and author, and we're digging into why every single one of us has an accent, even the people who think they sound normal like me, which usually just means my accent has historically gotten better real estate, better job interviews, and fewer people asking where I'm really from.

We'll talk about the Pan Am bomb threat case where a linguist heard what cops had all missed. We'll get into why babies are basically tiny accent sponges with no student loans. Why adults can practice Spanish for twelve years and still sound like a roomba choking on a tortilla, and why the letter R is English's most dramatic little diva, and why social media isn't killing accents so much as turning them into identity cosplay with better lighting. So whether you say water, water, or wash. This episode will make you hear your own voice differently and maybe stop judging everyone else like your Simon Cyle with a linguistics minor. Here we go with Valerie Friedland.

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