On January 30, PBS' original YouTube seriesOtherwords is coming back for its fifth season. This popular show produced in Austin tracks down the historical explanations for quirks in our weird English language, and it's hosted by former University of Texas alum-turned-professor Erica Brozovsky.

Otherwords digs into language to explore the stories behind the words and sounds we all use on a day to day basis. It covers everything from biology, to history, to literature, and more, expertly explained by Brozovsky, a sociolinguist.

In her time as a professor, she taught Asian American Literature and Culture as well as English Language and its Social Context. These days, Brozovsky lives in Massachusetts and teaches Writing and Rhetoric, but the show is entirely filmed and produced here in Austin by local media company Spotzen.

"I moved out of Austin in 2022 to be closer to my family in the Northeast," says Brozovsky, "so now I come back to film a couple of times a year. Right now, we've done the first few [episodes] of season five and we're still working on it."

"We" here means Brozovsky and a very small team local to Austin. Almost every episode is shot in a small studio, but one episode in particular, "Why Do We Use Cringey Words for Loved Ones?," was actually shot all around town. It even features some interviews with locals.

Throughout this entertaining, educational series, Brozovsky talks about things like why baby names fall out of fashion or whether or not the southern accent is disappearing (spoiler alert: it's definitely changing). All the while, the screen is filled with colorful, entertaining, and helpful animations and visuals. It's sort of like watching an infographic come to life, in a very fun way.

In a previous episode Brozovsky discusses the changing trends in baby names. Photo courtesy of PBS.

Season 5 will air on PBS' YouTube channel, Storied, from January 30 through October 23. While not all episodes have been finished at this point, here are a few to whet your palette (that one's from Old English):

• January 30: Where Body Parts Got Their Names
• February 27: How Do Languages Die?
• March 27: Why Negation Is So Complex
• April 24: Universal Grammar Controversy

"In all of these episodes, you're not just learning what the title is about," says Brozovsky. "For example, the first episode, "Where Body Parts Got Their Names," is not just literally about the body parts; you're also learning about sound change." For non-linguists, that's the phenomenon where the pronunciation of a language changes over time.

"And in the March episode, "Why Negation is So Complex," we start the episode by talking about AI," she continues. "As humans we know when something is 'not' bad, it's pretty good. Or 'not' dead means alive. But a lot of these [AI] systems can't perceive the entire thing. So if you ask one of these generative AIs, 'Make this picture without an elephant in it,' all it hears is 'elephant' and it adds an elephant. So negation is difficult for computers to understand."

This sort of nerding out about language is what Otherwords is all about.

"It's an educational program," says Brozovsky, "but it's also meant to entertain. Language is one of the things that separates us from non-humans, and I would encourage people not just to be talking, but to think about the little things that go into what we say and how we say it."