{"podcast":{"title":"How Humans Work Podcast","slug":"how-humans-work-podcast-1330381","podcast_index_feed_id":1330381,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/how-humans-work/","website_url":"HTTPS://howhumanswork.us/episodes","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/c6530537-c260-4096-9976-73a268831e74/uHKbO7IMPU2Co6tEhGGf4S0J.png","author":"Jef Szi","episode_count":69,"summary":"Join Jef Szi—renaissance acupuncturist and insatiably curious show host—as he guides us into the labyrinths of human nature. Each season and each episode explores a central theme through conversations with guests from diverse traditions: thinkers like Robert Sapolsky, Deb Dana, and Michael Meade, alongside artists, activists, and explorers such as Luis J. Rodriguez, Orin Carpenter, and Dossie Easton. Together, we uncover personal stories and timeless wisdom—insights that stir, resonate, and inspire. Tune in and journey into the forces that shape who we are and how we live as we navigate the personal and the profound. Consider yourself invited to walk the winding path with the How Humans Work Podcast.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T14:18:08.678235+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-humans-work-podcast-1330381"},"episode":{"title":"#59: Laura Spinney - Proto: The Language that Runs Through Us","slug":"59-laura-spinney-proto-the-language-that-runs-through-us","published_at":"2026-07-24T05:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-humans-work-podcast-1330381/59-laura-spinney-proto-the-language-that-runs-through-us","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-humans-work-podcast-1330381","url":"HTTPS://howhumanswork.us/episodes","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/e611d7b5-7c1c-4f16-8bbb-d1d53a6bf0d3.mp3","summary":"Episode #59 Summary The delightful and engaging Laura Spinney is a science journalist and author of the book Proto . Laura joins the podcast to help us unpack the extraordinary story of the ancient Bronze Age Yamnaya culture, whose linguistic legacy endures today in the family of Indo-European languages. Even though the Yamnaya’s Proto language went extinct without being recorded, its linguistic offspring have survived across millennia, evolving into a multitude of other languages that are alive and well in our time. Some of these many languages are English, Urdu, Russian, Farsi, Bengali, Spanish, Norwegian, and Irish. Proto is also the mother tongue of other languages that have since become extinct, such as Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. With admirable mental dexterity, Laura weaves the complex, multilayered facets of the Proto story. She helps us tackle the core mystery of it all: who were the ancient peoples who spoke Proto that was never written down and hasn’t been uttered in more than 4,000 years, and how is it that their Pontic Steppe culture ended up being the progenitor to a set of languages that are now spoken around the planet? Armed with the most up-to-date insights from linguistics, archaeology, and genetics, Laura shows us how these disciplines have converged over the last two decades to provide an increasingly clearer, but still evolving portrait. By unearthing DNA, tracing word roots, and studying cultural remnants, science has modeled aspects of this prehistoric period and the Yamnaya peoples, providing a deeper glimpse into the linguistic origins of nearly half of the planet. This episode concludes by considering the contemporary lessons Proto's themes offer. Migrations, evolving linguistic and genetic demographics, and the nativist and nationali…","meta_description":"Episode #59 Summary The delightful and engaging Laura Spinney is a science journalist and author of the book Proto . Laura joins the podcast to help us un…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3743,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-humans-work-podcast-1330381/episodes/59-laura-spinney-proto-the-language-that-runs-through-us/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-humans-work-podcast-1330381/59-laura-spinney-proto-the-language-that-runs-through-us.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}