Ross Perlin with Jason Diamond: Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York

​Linguist and writer Ross Perlin joins us to discuss his new book, Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, with fellow writer Jason Diamond.

This event will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.

Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century and—because many have never been recorded—when they’re gone, it will be forever. Ross Perlin, a linguist and co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history: contemporary New York. In Language City, Perlin recounts the unique history of immigration that shaped the city, and follows six remarkable yet ordinary speakers of endangered languages deep into their communities to learn how they are maintaining and reviving their languages against overwhelming odds. Perlin also dives deep into their languages, taking us on a fascinating tour of unusual grammars, rare sounds, and powerful cultural histories from all around the world.

Seke is spoken by 700 people from five ancestral villages in Nepal, a hundred of whom have lived in a single Brooklyn apartment building. N’ko is a radical new West African writing system now going global in Harlem and the Bronx. After centuries of colonization and displacement, Lenape, the city’s original Indigenous language and the source of the name Manhattan (“the place where we get bows”), has just one fluent native speaker, bolstered by a small band of revivalists. Also profiled in the book are speakers of the Indigenous Mexican language Nahuatl, the Central Asian minority language Wakhi, and the former lingua franca of the Lower East Side, Yiddish.

A century after the anti-immigration Johnson-Reed Act closed America’s doors for decades and on the 400th anniversary of New York’s colonial founding, Perlin raises the alarm about growing political threats and the onslaught of “killer languages” like English and Spanish. Both remarkable social history and testament to the importance of linguistic diversity, Language City is a joyful and illuminating exploration of a city and the world that made it.

 At this event, Ross Perlin will discuss his new book with fellow writer Jason Diamond. 

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Ross Perlin is a linguist, writer, and translator focused on exploring and supporting linguistic diversity. His book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York is just out from Grove. Since 2013 he has been Co-Director of the Endangered Language Alliance, managing research projects on mapmaking, documentation, policy, and public programming for urban linguistic diversity. He also teaches linguistics at Columbia. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, and elsewhere, and his first book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy ignited a national conversation about unpaid work.

Jason Diamond is a writer and editor who lives in Brooklyn. He's the author of the memoir Searching for John Hughes, the essay collection The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs, and co-author of the forthcoming New York Nico's Guide to NYC with Nicholas Heller. He's a contributor to GQ and New York Magazine. Since this is for a New York-centric event, he'd like to add that he believes the best hot dog in the city is the one you get while waiting for a pastrami sandwich on line at Katz's.

GET THE BOOK

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


• E-Book app: SimplyE, available on iOS and Android

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ACCESSIBILITY NOTES

In-Person

• Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.


• You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

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All programs are subject to change or cancellation. 

The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).