This week, in the World Changers issue, Joshua Foer talks to John Quijada, a fifty-four-year-old amateur linguist who spent three decades preparing his invented language, Ithkuil, before releasing it online in 2004. But Quijada realized he may have lost control of Ithkuil after a group of psychonetics practitioners in Russia began studying his language… http://nyr.kr/SWVG0t

Photograph by Dan Winters.

Today, on Noam Chomsky’s 84th birthday, Gary Marcus reflects on the legacy he’s created, and his influence on linguistics: “Chomsky may not always have the right answers. But he has always had the wisdom to pose the right questions.”

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/VnwY7Z

Photograph by Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum.

In the July 23rd issue of the magazine, Jack Hitt reports on the use of forensic linguistics in criminal proceedings. Here Hitt talks with Sasha Weiss about what forensic linguistics can tell us about how we communicate.

For listeners new to the field, Hitt explains that forensic linguists study the semantic tics, unusual phrasings, and other verbal clues that reveal “how people unconsciously signal who they are through their language.” These methods have long been used in civil courts to settle disputes over trademarks or patents, but they are increasingly being used to help solve criminal cases as well.

Subscribe to The New Yorker Out Loud for a weekly conversation with contributors to The New Yorker. This and other podcasts are available through iTunes, or through our Feeds page.