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Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages
Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives and ways of life. Rare Tongues tells the stories of the world’s rare and vanishing languages, revealing how each is a living testament to human resilience, adaptability, and the perennial quest for identity.
Taking readers on a captivating journey of discovery, Lorna Gibb explores the histories of languages under threat or already extinct as well as those in resurgence, shedding light on their origins, development, and distinctive voices. She travels the globe—from Australia and Finland to India, the Canary Islands, Namibia, Scotland, and Paraguay—showing how these languages are not mere words and syntax but keepers of diverse worldviews, sites of ethnic conflict, and a means for finding surprising commonalities. Readers learn the basics of how various language systems work—with vowels and consonants, whistles and clicks, tonal inflections, or hand signs—and how this kaleidoscope of self-expression carries vital information about our planet, indigenous cultures and tradition, and the history and evolution of humankind.
Rare Tongues is essential reading for anyone concerned about the preservation of endangered languages and an eloquent and disarmingly personal meditation on why the world’s linguistic heritage is so fundamental to our shared experience—and why its loss should worry us all.
Taking readers on a captivating journey of discovery, Lorna Gibb explores the histories of languages under threat or already extinct as well as those in resurgence, shedding light on their origins, development, and distinctive voices. She travels the globe—from Australia and Finland to India, the Canary Islands, Namibia, Scotland, and Paraguay—showing how these languages are not mere words and syntax but keepers of diverse worldviews, sites of ethnic conflict, and a means for finding surprising commonalities. Readers learn the basics of how various language systems work—with vowels and consonants, whistles and clicks, tonal inflections, or hand signs—and how this kaleidoscope of self-expression carries vital information about our planet, indigenous cultures and tradition, and the history and evolution of humankind.
Rare Tongues is essential reading for anyone concerned about the preservation of endangered languages and an eloquent and disarmingly personal meditation on why the world’s linguistic heritage is so fundamental to our shared experience—and why its loss should worry us all.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published February 27, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 3, 2025
I listened to the audio version of this newly published book. It’s so new, in fact, that they don’t seem to have decided yet on a cover design for the audio version. The author describes the book both as an “Odyssey” and as a personal journey. It’s not a exhaustive description of “rare tongues” but a compilation of entries about languages that particularly interested her. It isn’t limited to verbal languages. She also covers “Plains Sign Talk”, the gesture language used as a lingua franca by Native Americans, and various whistling languages.
The author hails from Bellshill in central Scotland, and likes to tell us that she grew up in a Council housing estate, (in the UK this is seen as an indicator of disadvantage) and that she attended a comprehensive school (i.e., an ordinary state-funded school). At the time her school offered Latin, though today the subject has all but disappeared from the curriculum in comprehensive schools. (The comprehensive school I attended in the 1970s also offered Latin, but no longer does). It was through Latin that she discovered her love of languages and her talent for them. Latin is the first language explored in the book. Although often referred to as a “dead language,” she points out it did not so much die as evolve. There is an interesting comparison with Manchu, which was once the language of China’s ruling elite, but which now has less than 20 native speakers, all elderly.
The author may have been raised on a Council estate but she seems to have become fully integrated within the world of academia. The book contains a lot of academic-style phrases like “the intersectionality of gender disparity and language marginalisation” sometimes accompanied by arguments I felt were a bit tendentious. There’s a section on “eco-linguistics”. Most people would probably go along with the idea that every language contains unique references to the physical environment within which the language developed, but the author goes a step further, arguing that disappearing languages contain irreplaceable ecological knowledge, that cannot be substituted by modern science. I personally found this unconvincing. She also argues that rare languages spoken by tribal peoples reflect the speakers’ “stewardship of the environment” and contain inherent recognition of the need to maintain the balance of the natural world. I don’t have space in this review to rehearse all the arguments around this idea, but I feel the author has an over-romanticised view of tribal peoples and pre-modern societies.
The book is most focused on the relationships between language, identity and power, and the idea of the “nation state.” Many of the languages featured suffered persecution because they were seen as divisive to the unity of the state. There’s an old joke that the definition of a language is “a dialect with an army and a navy”, and there is discussion about the language we used to call Serbo-Croat, now described as four different languages, although they are all mutually intelligible. By contrast Sicilian, a language with significant differences from Italian, is often described as a “dialect”. The last section looks at language rebirth, focusing particularly on Hebrew, and Māori.
On the whole I quite liked this. I didn’t find it particularly revelatory, but it was informative. I was introduced to the existence of a number of languages I had not known about (Wymysorys anyone?). I had some doubts about the narrator’s pronunciation in the Scottish Gaelic section, but this is obviously an exceptionally challenging book to narrate.
Quite a short audiobook – 7 hours 21 minutes.
The author hails from Bellshill in central Scotland, and likes to tell us that she grew up in a Council housing estate, (in the UK this is seen as an indicator of disadvantage) and that she attended a comprehensive school (i.e., an ordinary state-funded school). At the time her school offered Latin, though today the subject has all but disappeared from the curriculum in comprehensive schools. (The comprehensive school I attended in the 1970s also offered Latin, but no longer does). It was through Latin that she discovered her love of languages and her talent for them. Latin is the first language explored in the book. Although often referred to as a “dead language,” she points out it did not so much die as evolve. There is an interesting comparison with Manchu, which was once the language of China’s ruling elite, but which now has less than 20 native speakers, all elderly.
The author may have been raised on a Council estate but she seems to have become fully integrated within the world of academia. The book contains a lot of academic-style phrases like “the intersectionality of gender disparity and language marginalisation” sometimes accompanied by arguments I felt were a bit tendentious. There’s a section on “eco-linguistics”. Most people would probably go along with the idea that every language contains unique references to the physical environment within which the language developed, but the author goes a step further, arguing that disappearing languages contain irreplaceable ecological knowledge, that cannot be substituted by modern science. I personally found this unconvincing. She also argues that rare languages spoken by tribal peoples reflect the speakers’ “stewardship of the environment” and contain inherent recognition of the need to maintain the balance of the natural world. I don’t have space in this review to rehearse all the arguments around this idea, but I feel the author has an over-romanticised view of tribal peoples and pre-modern societies.
The book is most focused on the relationships between language, identity and power, and the idea of the “nation state.” Many of the languages featured suffered persecution because they were seen as divisive to the unity of the state. There’s an old joke that the definition of a language is “a dialect with an army and a navy”, and there is discussion about the language we used to call Serbo-Croat, now described as four different languages, although they are all mutually intelligible. By contrast Sicilian, a language with significant differences from Italian, is often described as a “dialect”. The last section looks at language rebirth, focusing particularly on Hebrew, and Māori.
On the whole I quite liked this. I didn’t find it particularly revelatory, but it was informative. I was introduced to the existence of a number of languages I had not known about (Wymysorys anyone?). I had some doubts about the narrator’s pronunciation in the Scottish Gaelic section, but this is obviously an exceptionally challenging book to narrate.
Quite a short audiobook – 7 hours 21 minutes.
August 21, 2025
I love the topic, I love languages and their kinships, continual movement, births and deaths , mirroring people’s migrations, communities’ births and deaths. I was disappointed. There is information galore, but I missed the passion. For me it was too dry.
June 16, 2025
A really interesting linguistic journey, perfect for language lovers. This book is not an extensive catalog on rare languages but rather one linguist’s personal reflection on a handful of them. That’s ok—I enjoyed her insights on small or endangered languages.
April 24, 2025
Some people are so smart and have such good ideas but are just such boring writers
October 22, 2025
Lorna Gibb’s Rare Tongues is a luminous journey through the world’s vanishing voices. From the whistled speech of La Gomera to the click languages of Namibia, from Sámi in the far north to the Aboriginal songlines of Australia and the dual heartbeat of Guaraní and Spanish in Paraguay, Gibb listens for what remains when words begin to disappear.
She writes with both precision and grace, showing how language holds not only stories but ways of seeing - the memory of a landscape, the rhythm of thought, the shape of belonging. Her chapters move seamlessly between reportage, history, and memoir, and when she turns to her own heritage in Gaelic and Scots, the book becomes deeply personal: a meditation on what it means to lose a tongue and still long to hear its echo.
Though grounded in loss, Rare Tongues is ultimately hopeful. Lorna Gibb finds resilience in every corner - in classrooms, songs, and communities refusing silence. This is a beautifully written, quietly powerful book that reminds us language is not just something we speak, but something we live inside.
She writes with both precision and grace, showing how language holds not only stories but ways of seeing - the memory of a landscape, the rhythm of thought, the shape of belonging. Her chapters move seamlessly between reportage, history, and memoir, and when she turns to her own heritage in Gaelic and Scots, the book becomes deeply personal: a meditation on what it means to lose a tongue and still long to hear its echo.
Though grounded in loss, Rare Tongues is ultimately hopeful. Lorna Gibb finds resilience in every corner - in classrooms, songs, and communities refusing silence. This is a beautifully written, quietly powerful book that reminds us language is not just something we speak, but something we live inside.
January 14, 2026
A good introduction for people to minority languages. The book is more of a collection of essays on interesting languages, and Gibb touches on some interesting themes, but there were a few times I felt she could've said more and been more in-depth. I have been left with some great rabbit holes to go down though!
August 9, 2025
!!Неймовірна книга сповнена історіями про життя, смерть\сон та відновлення мов. Зокрема виявляється що використання самоназви мов\народів письменниками зникаючих\пригнічених мов як прізвище є відносно розповсюдженим (тож не тільки Леся Українка мала таку фішку)
May 12, 2025
4.5 - I love languages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3
May 24, 2025
It could have been a really good book, if half of the chapters weren't abandoned in the middle of writing.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews