Language City with Ross Perlin

This event is part of the Hay Festival.

Join linguist Ross Perlin, winner of the 2024 British Academy Book Prize, in a race against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history: contemporary New York.

Half of all 7000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century – and many have never been recorded. Perlin recounts the unique history of immigration that shaped New York City, and follows six remarkable speakers of endangered languages into their communities, taking us on a fascinating tour of unusual grammars, rare sounds and powerful cultural histories from around the world. 'Language City' was the winner of the British Academy Book Prize 2024.

In conversation with British writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn OBE

Speaker: Ross Perlin

Ross Perlin is a linguist, writer, and translator. Since 2013 he has co-directed the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to documenting Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages. He has written for the New York Times, the Guardian, Harper’s, and n+1, and the Endangered Language Alliance has been covered by the New York Times, the New Yorker, BBC, NPR, and many others. He is also the author of 'Intern Nation: How to Learn Nothing and Earn Little in the Brave New Economy' (2011). Perlin was a New Arizona Fellow at New America and is a native New Yorker.

Image: Photograph of Ross Perlin © Greg Allen