Schwa Fire is the name the founding linguist, journalist, and author Michael Erard has settled on for his digital-only magazine for language nerds. Even linguist and Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer had to warm up to it.

“Fire is something that would translate really well across a lot of cultures,” Erard explained. “And ‘schwa’ is something that people like to say,” he added. The name is also a shibboleth: Those who know the term will find the content interesting. Those who don’t and don’t care to find out what it means, won’t.

Despite a somewhat exclusionary name, Schwa’s Kickstarter campaign claims “you won’t have to become a linguist to understand them [the stories].” But, the magazine will cater to a niche audience that finds stories about language implicitly interesting, says Erard. So: You should like language, but don’t have to have a PhD in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, like Erard, to understand or care about the stories.

“What’s not out there is an outlet for longform journalism about language in life,” Erard explained as his rationale for the project. The New Yorker might run two stories about language in a given year. Errard suspects there’s an audience that wants more than one definitive article on forensic linguistics. More.

See: Fast Company

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