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https://theconversation.com/languages-are-disappearing-and-the-problem-is-political-288917>
"
Review: How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our
Words – Sophie Smith Galler (HarperCollins)
Sophia Smith Galler’s
How to Kill a Language introduces the many methods that
are used to coerce people into taking up dominant languages at the expense of
their own. These include massacres, dispossession, forced relocation,
criminalisation and public humiliation, as well as more subtle techniques, like
economic pressure and political indifference.
Each chapter of
How to Kill a Language takes a close look at one of these
techniques and tells the story of how it has been used against a specific
community.
Smith Galer takes readers to Oman, Greece, Ecuador, the United States and Ghana
to visit communities that are working to defend their languages. To learn about
conflict zones that were too dangerous to visit, she speaks to experts like
Ukraine’s language commissioner Taras Kremin and Kurdish academic Farangis
Ghaderi.
She combines stories from these people and places with her own family’s story
of assimilation as migrants in the United Kingdom.
The intimacy of these stories and Smith Galer’s personal connection to them
sets her book apart from previous endangered languages travelogues, such as
Last Speakers (2010) by linguist David K. Harrison and
Spoken Here (2003)
by journalist Mark Abley.
Smith Galer’s book is also set apart from an earlier generation of writing
about language loss by its clear focus on the political dimension of the
problem.
The first popular books on language loss, such as
Language Death (2000) by
linguist David Crystal and
Vanishing Voices (2000) by cognitive scientist
Daniel Nettle and linguist Suzanne Romaine, did not avoid discussion of
politics. But their political analysis was often hidden behind biological
metaphors that compared oppressed languages to endangered species. They also
tended to offer technical solutions rather than political ones.
Since these books were published, criticism of their depoliticised approach has
grown. Academic researchers and language activists increasingly acknowledge
that political change is essential to combating language loss.
These perspectives have only recently begun reaching wider audiences. This is
seen in books such as
Speak Not (2021) by journalist James Griffiths and
Language City by linguist Ross Perlin (2024).
In
How to Kill a Language, Smith Galer is thus using her keen storytelling
talents and sharp analytical vision to build on the work of researchers,
activists and other journalists who have argued that global language loss is a
political problem requiring political solutions."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
