How to Kill a Language A Story of Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

'Beautiful, thought-provoking, and compelling' SUSIE DENT

'Punchy and persuasive' SUNDAY TIMES

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 dialet 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.

Award-winning journalist 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 an impassioned investigation into a hidden global crisis, and a call to speak, read and write the languages of our world, before it's too late.

'An extremely moving, passionate plea' CAL FLYN

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9780008723736
Published: May 2026

Number of pages: 304
Width: 153 mm
Height: 234 mm
Depth: 26 mm

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers