Are There Really Native English Speakers?

A crossover with Dr. Chris Haswell on World Englishes, colonial legacies, and who owns the English language. 🔗 Find Lost in Citations at https://www.lostincitations.com/ What makes someone a "native" English speaker? According to Dr. Chris Haswell of Kyushu University and co-host of Lost in Citations, the answer is: nothing; the distinction doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In this crossover episode, Andrew sits down with Chris to unpack the field of World Englishes. They cover why a person from Rotherham and a person from New Orleans might be mutually unintelligible despite sharing a "first language," how Japan built an entire writing system just for foreign loanwords, and why the Thatcher-era codified a native/non-native dichotomy that linguists now reject as late-stage imperial thinking. Along the way: frog-giggin in Louisiana, the return diaspora of "anime" back into English, Scandinavian people who speak better English than the English, and why HTML5 might be a better metaphor for language evolution than any prescriptivist academy. This is a free preview of the conversation. The full episode including Chris's research on decolonializing English, language death, and YouTube as a living laboratory for World Englishes is available to Patreon supporters. 🎧 Subscribe to Seemingly Unrelated on your preferred podcast player 💸 Full episodes + 100+ hours of bonus content at patreon.com/seeminglyunrelated