Book description
Half the world's languages are threatened with extinction over the
next century, as English and the rest of the world's top twenty
languages drive all before them. What ways of looking at the world
will die along with them, what cultural riches, what experiences,
histories and memories? And how does it feel to be one of the last
remaining speakers of a language that is on its way to extinction?
What chance is there of saving any of these languages? Is it feasible
in the long term or even worthwhile?
Mark Abley's journeys among the speakers of languages at the brink
takes him to aboriginal Australia (where he meets the last surviving
fluent male speaker of Mati Ke, who cannot speak to the only other
fluent speaker, as she is his sister and in their culture it is
forbidden to speak to siblings once one has reached puberty) and to
American Indian reservations, as well as to places where the languages
are fighting back - Wales, the Faeroe islands, the Isle of Man -
whilst also charting the triumphant return of Hebrew.
Mark Abley, a winner of Canada's National Newspaper Award, is the
author of nine critically-acclaimed books, ranging from children's
fiction to poetry, via journalistic non-fiction. He has written for the
TLS, the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Montreal Gazette, amongst other
publications. Winning a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 inspired his 2008
book
The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English
. He lives in Montréal and speaks English, French, and a little Welsh.
