Language City: The Fight To Preserve Endangered Mother TonguesMaster ClassIn-Person
Wednesday, Nov 20, 2024
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m
Endangered Language Alliance
3 W 18th St.
6th Fl.
New York, NY 10011
Founded in 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) is a non-profit dedicated to documenting Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages, supporting linguistic diversity in New York City and beyond.
Even as half of the world’s 7,000 plus languages grow increasingly endangered, contemporary cities are more linguistically diverse than ever before. As speakers migrate across the globe, linguists and language activists are racing against time to map and document lesser-known, minority, endangered, and Indigenous languages. In this master class held at the office of the Endangered Language Alliance, we will explore global linguistic diversity and examine the past, present, and future of the world’s most linguistically diverse city, New York, while touching on multilingualism, language policy, and the role technology plays in the evolution and documentation of languages.
WORLD LANGUAGES, NYC AND US HISTORY, SOCIAL STUDIES, LINGUISTICS
Ross Perlin
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 was just released by Grove in the US and the UK. Since 2013 he has been Co-Director of the Endangered Language Alliance in New York, where he created the Jewish Languages Project. 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. He has an MA in Language Documentation and Description from SOAS and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Bern.