Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues

“This book is very fluently written and very engaging. What he’s concerned about are minority or endangered languages. He says that there are around 7000 languages spoken across the world, but only 4% of the world’s population speaks 96% of those…What he focuses on is New York City because, as he says, one out of 10 of every language on the planet is being spoken at some time in the city, which is phenomenal…One of the very striking things he does is visit what he calls ‘vertical villages’ in Brooklyn. There’s one city block where practically everyone in it speaks Seke, a threatened Tibeto-Burman language from the Himalayas. It’s spoken in only two villages, which are under threat because they’re on the border.” Read more...

The 2024 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding

Charles Tripp, Political Scientist