How to Kill a Language by Sophia Smith Galer

This is the story of our modern world in 10 languages.

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.

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 the story of our modern world in 10 languages. It 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.

This is the story of our modern world in 10 languages.

About the Author: Sophia is a reporter, writer and documentary maker with the BBC World Service, specialising in religion and digital culture. She is the first BBC journalist to be on TikTok and has accrued over 200,000 followers across social media. She was named as a ‘Voice of Change’ in the TikTok 100 best of 2020 and sits as an inaugural member of the TikTok Creator Council. She was also selected as a One to Watch by the Edinburgh Television Festival in 2020 and has a Webby in Social Media for Arts and Culture. This will be her first book.

07 May 2026
 

How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words by Sophia Smith Galer ISBN 9780008723736