Word For Word with Sophia Smith Galer
The languages that shaped Len Pennie
Published: 3 March 2026 at 06:43 Europe/London
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Episode notes
Len Pennie doesn’t feel entirely at home in English or in Scots. So she writes in both. In this episode of Word For Word, poet and broadcaster Len Pennie joins journalist Sophia Smith Galer to explore what it means to live between languages. From growing up immersed in Scots without stigma, to discovering the shame and suppression surrounding, Len reflects on how a language can be celebrated on stage yet punished in the classroom and wider society.They open up on the politics - and inaccuracy - of calling Scots a “dialect,” the sanitising of Robert Burns, and why Len refuses to include a glossary in her books. The conversation moves through bilingual identity, monolingual privilege, and the complicated question of who “has the right” to claim a language. Len also shares how learning Spanish became both a refuge and a reminder of trauma, as well as how different languages can unlock entirely different versions of ourselves. Follow Len on social media at @misspunnypennie and find her poetry collections in my Bookshop link, along with other books on language and identity that I have loved reading: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/how-to-kill-a-language-and-friends?&new-list-page=true You can order my book How To Kill A Language in the same spot, as well as from Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-kill-a-language/sophia-smith-galer/9780008723729 Or Amazon: https://amzn.to/4shmq0e This is a Viralect original podcast created by Sophia Smith Galer. This episode was filmed by Omar Mehtab and Seren Jones was the Executive Producer. Head to www.viralect.com to find our services and tools, and if you’ve got an iPhone, download Sophiana and take advantage of your free month using the code WORDFORWORD at https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/sophiana-script-video-maker/id6742998989.00:00 – Living between languages08:18 – What’s Scots?15:00 – Sanitising Burns & who gets to use Scots20:48 – Falling in love with Spanish, and language trauma28:00 – Monolingualism, privilege and language hierarchies39:30 – Feeling like different people with different languages 48:10 – Sophia’s language nerd quiz01:00:50 – The future of Scots: “Government-Subsidised Grannies”
