About this episode

Michael Rosen discusses the alarming rate of language extinction with Sophia Smith Galer, who explores efforts to preserve endangered languages.

Michael Rosen talks to Sophia Smith Galer about the languages we're losing. She's found that by the end of this century half of the world’s 7000 languages will be gone, and she's travelled across the world to meet both the people who are experiencing this and those who are fighting to keep the words and the knowledge they hold alive. Sophia Smith Galer is the author of How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words. Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea, in partnership with the Open University. Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz

People in this episode

Host: Michael Rosen

Guest: Sophia Smith Galer

Topics covered

• language extinction
• cultural preservation
• linguistics
• globalization
• sociolinguistics

Keywords

• language extinction
• endangered languages
• cultural knowledge
• linguistic diversity
• language preservation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: BBC Radio 4, BBC Audio Bristol, Open University

Books & works: How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words

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