80,000 Hours Podcast With Rob Wiblin

John McWhorter is a linguistics professor at Columbia University specialising in research on creole languages. He's also a content-producing machine, never afraid to give his frank opinion on anything and everything. On top of his academic work, he's written 22 books, produced five online university courses, hosts one and a half podcasts, and now writes a regular New York Times op-ed column.Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in December 2022.YouTube video version: https://youtu.be/MEd7TT_nMJELinks to learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.link/JMWe ask him what we think are the most important things everyone ought to know about linguistics, including:Can you communicate faster in some languages than others, or is there some constraint that prevents that?Does learning a second or third language make you smarter or not?Can a language decay and get worse at communicating what people want to say?If children aren't taught a language, how many generations does it take them to invent a fu