'An extremely moving, passionate plea' CAL FLYN, author of Islands of Abandonment
‘This is the best book on language endangerment I have ever read. A love letter to languages' DAVID CRYSTAL, author of Language Death
As Sophia Smith Galer’s Nonna lay dying, she realised it wasn’t just a beloved grandmother she was losing – it was the language she spoke, too. From Northern Italy, she spoke a dialët that Sophia, like so many children and grandchildren of migrants, can understand but can’t speak. With the death of the language, Sophia would lose a culture, a history, an inheritance – a whole world.
This tragedy reaches far beyond her family. Globally we are witnessing an unprecedented mass extinction event. By the end of this century half of the world’s 7000 languages will be gone, killed by war, climate breakdown, migration, nationalism or neglect, along with the vital knowledge that they have sustained for centuries.
Smith Galer has journeyed across continents and generations to report from this disappearing world. From Ghana to Greece, Ecuador to Oman, California to the UK, she meets people experiencing this loss at first hand – but also campaigners and linguists who prove that a multilingual future is still possible. Her travels ultimately lead her back to where she began: to Italy, and the tiny mountainside village where the church bells still ring out for her Nonna.
How to Kill a Language is a vital investigation into a hidden global crisis, and a call to speak, read and write the languages of our world, before it’s too late.
About the Author :
Sophia Smith Galer is an award-winning journalist, author and content creator based in London. She won the British Journalism Award for Innovation of the Year for her work, as well as recognition on lists such as Forbes Under 30 and British Vogue’s 25 Most Influential Women in the UK. She has reported across four continents for the BBC and VICE News; her videos have been seen more than 160 million times on TikTok and Instagram where she explores etymology, language rights and linguistics. She studied Spanish and Arabic at Durham University and her family speak Italian and a variety of Emilian.
Review :
‘Utterly fascinating, very topical and wide-ranging’ BIDISHA
‘An extremely moving, passionate plea to protect linguistic diversity. A language is more than a dictionary or a system of grammar: it is an archive, a culture, a symbol, a mode of being. Sophia Smith Galer's fascinating book digs down into what it really means to translate, document, conserve, comprehend, colonise’ CAL FLYN, author of Islands of Abandonment
'Sophia Smith Galer is one of the UK's most impressive young journalists' GREG JENNER
‘This is the best book on language endangerment I have ever read. A love letter to languages … Its ten stories locate their languages in a context of personal heritage, identity, and culture in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and yet profoundly moving’ DAVID CRYSTAL, author of Language Death
