A very long list of linguistics YouTube channels and other free online videos about linguistics
Want to teach yourself linguistics on youtube? Looking for online courses about linguistics? Want to supplement the linguistics resources available for your linguistics class? Here’s an extensive list for you to pick from, with a few notes on style and content.
General linguistics youtube channels:
The Ling Space (person talking with a bit of animation, see also their summary post)
David J. Peterson’s conlanging youtube channel (person talking)
Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)
Groups of videos or short series on specific topics:
Tom Scott’s Language Files (person talking with graphic effects)
Artifexian’s conlanging videos
North Caroline Language and Life project
Common sounds in Australian Indigenous languages
Verner’s Law and how the Germanic languages developed from Proto-Indo-European (person talking plus animation)
How to apply for a Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) grant
Videos illustrating Gricean Maxims
Cuando Muere una Lengua / When a tongue dies - Videos in Mexican Indigenous languages from the project 68 voces (68 voices)
Christmas-themed stories told in ASL by an adorable child (ASL Nook)
Individual interesting videos:
Do Sign Languages Have Accents?
Sign Language Isn’t Universal
A cute video about doing linguistic studies with children (and a puppet) from the University of Connecticut
Structural Ambiguity (LingVids) and an example from Animaniacs
How English Sounds to Non-English Speakers
Prisencolinensinainciusol (fake English song)
Is Cereal Soup? and Zipf’s Law from Vsauce
The Dangerous Ambiguity of Prepositions
Can You Speak Emoji? PBS Idea Channel
World-record fast talkers (and how that works in the brain)
Crash Course Psychology: Language
How much information? (Veritasium)
Cross-sections of the head or vocal tract while speaking:
Music video (Better Man Than He)
ArticulatoryIPA: many individual short videos of specific sounds showing them produced in the vocal tract
eNunciate: ultrasound videos of the inside of the mouth superimposed on the side of a speaker’s face
X-ray gif and animated gif
Beatboxer in MRI machine (plus IPA)
Two videos of the inside of the vocal tract (note: kinda gross)
Structured series or online course, introduction to linguistics:
Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor - whiteboard, Khan Academy style)
Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham, person talking)
The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University (person talking)
“Miracles of Human Language” (on Coursera from Leiden University)
Structured series or online courses on a specific topic (might be useful to follow some of the intro material first):
Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)
A syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (University of Edinburgh)
Sign Language Structure, Learning, and Change (on EdX from Georgetown University, in ASL with English subtitles and voiceover)
Language Revival: Securing the Future of Endangered Languages (on EdX from the University of Adelaide)
Long videos (documentaries or lectures):
The Linguistic Society of America’s youtube channel has both public lectures from prominent linguists (tend to assume some background knowledge of linguistics) and some recordings of professional development webinars, such as how to write an abstract
The Five Minute Linguist talks: 2017 and 2018 (one long video of many short, engaging talks about linguistics)
Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain
MIT OpenCourseware: Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation lectures
Introduction to Optimality Theory in Phonology (UC Berkeley)
Rising voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi, a documentary about revitalizing the Lakota language, in full on youtube (it’s just under an hour long)
A classic documentary on Canadian English
The Adventure of English (BBC documentary series)
A few linguistically-relevant TED and TEDx talks (NOT a complete list):
Endangered languages: why it matters (Mandana Seyfeddinipur)
Deaf children need sign language (Drisana Levitzke-Gray)
Robots talking with Robots - How Lingodroids invent their own language (Janet Wiles)
Four reasons to learn a new language (John McWhorter)
Several short language-related videos from TED-Ed
American and British Politeness (Lynne Murphy)
Hacking Language Learning (Conor Quinn)
The linguistic genius of babies (Patricia Kuhl)
What makes a word “real”? (Anne Curzan)
Redefining the dictionary (Erin McKean)
See also my linguistics videos tag for an automatically-updated list of linguistics videos, often from sporadically-updated or smaller channels.
For more documentaries and longer videos about linguistics, most of which aren’t online, see A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes.
For more resources to learn linguistics, including linguistics podcasts, blogs, books, and other advice, check out How to teach yourself linguistics online for free.
Know of something that isn’t on one of these lists and should be? Feel free to let me know!
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