Mentioned in Podcasts

Episode · Freakonomics Radio · 2017-09-21

Books mentioned on 301. What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series)

1 book · With Michael Gordon, Lera Boroditsky, John McWhorter, Esther Schor, Ruth Cohen, Shlomo Weber, Brian Kernighan · Listen

We explore votes for English, Indonesian, and … Esperanto! The search for a common language goes back millennia, but so much still gets lost in translation.

Stephen Dubner discussed The Koran.

Books mentioned, in the order they came up

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  1. The Koran

    Unknown · at 25:41

    The Koran is a foundational religious text of Islam that has profoundly shaped the linguistic, cultural, and spiritual unity of the Arabic-speaking world.

    Discussed
    “in the case of Arabic, the Koran and the religious unity of the nations has a lot to do with it.”
    Stephen Dubner 301. What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series) 2017-09-21
    Where to get it
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Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“It's not going to be a babble fish, the babble fish is from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by the way, that you stick in your ear and will translate everything immediately.”
Stephen Dubner 301. What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series) 2017-09-21
Link to this list from the episode’s show notes

For the whole show, see the Freakonomics Radio page.