Stanford Humanities Center
Join us for the next workshop seminar on "Global Approaches to Multilingual Digital Humanities and Data Practices," titled "Mapping Urban Linguistic Diversity in New York City: Motives, Methods, Tools, and Outcomes" by Dr. Ross Perlin. This presentation delves into the urgent efforts to document, maintain, and revitalize endangered, minoritized, and primarily oral languages in urban settings. Drawing from his new book and the evolving digital project languagemap.nyc, which maps over 700 languages spoken in New York City, Perlin examines the unique challenges of mapping endangered languages within hyperdiverse urban environments. The talk explores the fluidity and invisibility of these languages and highlights innovative tools and technologies shaping the future of language preservation. RSVP for lunch or to receive the Zoom link here.
This workshop is a part of the "Global Approaches to Multilingual Data Practices and Digital Humanities," sponsored by the Global Research Workshops by Stanford Global Studies.
About the Talk
Contemporary cities are the most linguistically diverse in history, even as half of the world’s 7000-plus languages are endangered, including the least well documented. Today linguists and language activists working at the intersection of multiple disciplines and with a range of new tools and technologies are racing against time to map, document, and support minoritized, Indigenous, and primarily oral languages. In his new book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, linguist Ross Perlin explores the challenges and opportunities for language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization in urban areas. Here he draws on languagemap.nyc, an evolving digital map of New York’s 700-plus languages, to focus in on the particular dynamics and challenges of mapping endangered languages in all their fluidity and invisibility across hyperdiverse urban space.
About the Speaker
Ross Perlin is a linguist, writer, and translator focused on exploring and supporting linguistic diversity. Since 2013 he has been Co-Director of the Endangered Language Alliance, leading research to map, document, and support urban linguistic diversity. His new book, Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, recently won the 2024 British Academy Book Prize. He also teaches linguistics at Columbia. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, and elsewhere, and his first book, Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, ignited a national conversation about unpaid work. He has PhD in Linguistics from the University of Bern, Masters degrees from Cambridge and SOAS, and a BA in Classics and East Asian Studies from Stanford.
