How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words

by Sophia Smith Galer

An urgent, globe-spanning exploration of languages at risk, from Kichwa to Ukrainian, that asks: What do we lose—culturally, politically, and personally—when a language is silenced?

“A vivid, hopeful portrait of how people around the world are staying connected to their linguistic roots.”—Gretchen McCulloch, author of Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

Languages can be killed in many ways: war, the climate crisis, nationalism, and even quiet choices made at the dinner table. Around the world, an unprecedented shift is drawing speakers toward national and global lingua francas. For some, that means losing the language of parents or grandparents; for many, it is a permanent farewell to systems that carry knowledge, culture, and belonging. With half of our 7,000 languages due to disappear this century, linguicide is one of the most pressing cultural emergencies of our age.

In How to Kill a Language, journalist Sophia Smith Galer travels across continents and generations to chart this phenomenon. In Ecuador, she sees firsthand how shame deters parents from passing Kichwa onto their children. In Oman, she learns about languages with roots older than Arabic but never officially recognized. And in Italy, she searches for her Nonna’s dialët, which is vanishing from diaspora communities and Italy itself. But languages can also be reclaimed: We meet the Karuk tribe of California, pioneering a grassroots language immersion program, and the storytellers challenging the criminalization of Kurdish. And in her discussion of Hebrew, Smith Galer reckons with the unintended consequences of raising a language seemingly from the grave.

Part investigation, part travelogue from a disappearing world, How to Kill a Language exposes the true costs of this mass extinction event. Brought to life by vivid storytelling and Smith Galer’s own experience with language loss, it’s a fierce rallying cry for a multilingual future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, History, Audiobook, Politics, Anthropology

Audiobook

First published May 7, 2026

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standing before Mount Rushmore on July 3, President Trump said, “In America, we speak English because that is the language of our founding and for a thousand years that has been the language of freedom.”

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1056, “He biþ swā dysig and swā ungewiss.”

Trump’s campaign to promote English is, unfortunately, just one of many fantasies rattling around the rusty roulette wheel of his mind. In early 2025, during a blitz of performative rage, he signed an executive order purporting to make English the official language of the United States.

A more effective way to honor English might be to stop using it to lie, insult, and confuse, but nobody invited Orwell to this rally.

In her new book How to Kill a Language, Sophia Smith Galer neatly dismisses the suggestion that we’re all better off speaking English: “In our insistence that a common language can unite us, we forget that multilingualism is — like all biodiversity — a connective tissue in the grand scheme of our existence.”

Besides, English hardly needs more official defense from the federal government. English already exerts an implacable force: “Bloated and greedy, our language siphons off the words of many of our speakers, benefiting from what multilingual immigrants contribute to our countries but stripping them of their own language within two generations.”

That linguistic crisis, she explains, is far more dire than most people realize.

“This is the century that will make or break the future of languages around the world,” she writes. Thousands of local tongues are already as endangered as pandas. “In the next one hundred years, up to half of the world’s languages will die.”

“No funerals will be held; no cemeteries will fill. Some languages will leave behind dictionaries, novels, hours of radio; others will leave nothing save for a relative’s turn of phrase someone still remembers with affection.”

In fact, it’s Smith Galer’s affection for her.....

To read the rest of this review for free, go to my Substack newsletter:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/the...

[Grace Btrs (semi ia- work-travel-life)]

Pre-read:
I've followed Sophia for quite a few years now. I've always admired the way she speaks about language and uses interdisciplinary commentary to take language beyond phonetic and grammatical usages to stories of humans.
So I was super excited when I saw she wrote this book and couldn't wait to get my hands on it!

To my delight, I was having a conversation yesterday (May 13, 2026) with a colleague, and she said, "I went to a book launch last week, and I think you would be very interested in it", and proceeded to share that Sophia used to work with her husband (journalist) and share this title.

I have received this as an eARC from Crown Publishing and Netgalley.
I unfortunately have been very overwhelmed and couldn't get to it before, but I just wanted to share my excitement.

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a second generation immigrant who is acutely aware of the loss of my fluency in what was my first language, but was replaced by English by the age of 7, this non-fiction hit home. Not to mention, that I then grew up in Wales which is currently going through linguisiticide despite being the oldest language in Britain. 

As the title suggests, this is a global spanning narrative investigating the mass extinction of the world's languages.Half of the world's 7,000 languages are projected to vanish by the end of this century due to various reasons such as war, climate breakdown, migration, state nationalism, and everyday neglect.

The author travels the world to report on case studies of lost or dying languages. She makes it clear that this is rarely a personal choice and the loss of language also results in cultural, political, and historical knowledge embedded inside unique vocabularies and dialects.

This is the century that will make or break the future of languages around the world," she writes. Thousands of local tongues are already as endangered as pandas.
In the next one hundred years, up to half of the world’s languages will die.
No funerals will be held; no cemeteries will fill. Some languages will leave behind dictionaries, novels, hours of radio; others will leave nothing save for a relative’s turn of phrase someone still remembers with affection.

What I appreciated was the hopefulness. Alongside loss, the book highlights activists, storytellers, and linguists fighting to prove a multilingual future is still possible.

I wish this was slightly more technical in terms of linguistics and more political, but this set out to provide a broad overview with case studies of real people.

The audiobook was easy to follow.
3.5 stars.🌟

Bookstagram
Tiktok

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I count it as one of the big failures of my life that I never learned another language. One of the things I did take from Sophia Smith Galer's How to Kill a Language is that I can definitely blame my parents. But not my grandparents. It's complicated.

Galer looks at the ways in which languages have disappeared or nearly died off across the world. She breaks this down into various different ways to kill a language (just like the title!) such as intentional criminalization to just straight-up ignoring them. There is no one way, but each of them can be very effective.

A book which just lists these murder methods could end up being quite dry. However, Galer goes the extra mile to find living language users who can give the reader a more intimate understanding of why these languages matter and why they need to be saved. None more personal than Galer's own Nonna who is the inspiration for the book in the first place. While all this is great stuff, I am still a sucker for the various tidbits Galer throws out there to blow your mind. Oh, and how the word fart keeps coming up. Yes, I laughed like an idiot every time. No, I am not ashamed.

(This book was provided as a review copy by Crown Publishing.)

[Mai H.]

Non-fiction November TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Crown

[Isabelle]

Hopping on this one with my Grace because if she says I’ll enjoy it, I jump 🙂‍↕️🫶🏻

[Jemma Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

personal reflection ensuing. I have been fascinated by language death/linguicide ever since i first realised my chinese grandfather didn’t actually speak ‘chinese’. it’s taken me even longer to realise he doesn’t even speak just ‘hokkien’, but a sub-variant, almost separate dialect, confined to the previously tiny village surrounded by mountains (now hosting 80,000 people) his family were from, albeit now populated with malay/cantonese and hakka loanwords from his upbringing. this ‘hokkien’ of the yongchun area in fujian province is a time-capsule of a bygone era, and like the author of this book’s dialect-speaking Italian grandmother, when my grandfather, his siblings and other octogenarian heritage speakers pass it will become extinct. having just returned from a trip to that same area, the generational death of this language has made me all the more aware of what is lost beyond just its words. i’m reminded of a moment when, walking through a street with many food vendors, my grandfather stood and pointed excitedly at one selling ‘hokkien spring rolls’ or popiah listing with surprising clarity the specific, unique fillings his mother would use to make it. of the times too when, having been unintelligible to many young people in xiamen who only speak mandarin, the odd elderly man or woman was able understand him and even pin down his dialect to its exact hometown based on a different way he said thank you or an accented word in mandarin. it called to mind all the other languages lost in my family tree - dutch from my mother's side for her lack of full fluency and perception of it not being ‘useful’, māori from my maternal great-grandmother who experienced a lifetime of language suppression and ensuing internalised racism. how many ways have successive language deaths impacted their speakers, their connection to their identity/culture and their ability to connect with their loved ones? in never speaking to them in their native languages, what aspects of my grandfather and my dutch opa will I never know? i particularly loved the organisation of this book with chapters categorised based on the causes of linguicide; emigration, occupation and shame being among my favourites. it is masterfully researched and also deeply personal/devastating - everyone should read this!!!!!

[Isobel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant book! Until chapter Sanctify? What happened?

Was so enthralled in this. But the latter half of the chapter on Hebrew has some incredibly bizarre and misleading wording and information around the history between Israel and Palestine; briefly mentioning a ‘war’, discussing Israeli scholars and linguists but only mentioning Hamas, seemingly hinting that the Jewish people simply integrated into Palestine, and a complete neglect to mention that Israel and Hebrew have actually become what they have today with thanks to decades of violence and settler colonialism that is still happening. Through a very bizarre narration that she’s chosen here (in comparison to her great descriptions of colonialism and oppression in previous chapters) it becomes a Zionist story that she has portrayed, I’m hoping accidentally? Basically, if this was somebody’s first impression of Israeli history, it would be a dangerous and misleading one.

The history of Hebrew and what the Jewish people have suffered through is rich and incredibly important, and the chapter on Ladino was so well written and interesting, but you can’t start discussing Israel and Palestine and just glaze over an active genocide. It felt as I read that here was a giant elephant between the lines that both myself and the author were aware of.

The rest of this book is an incredible achievement and as the speaker of an endangered language (Gaelic) I was drawn to it. But the section on Hebrew/Israel has left a very sour taste in my mouth.

[Olena Golubiatnikova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I studied at one of the few Ukrainian-language schools in Crimea. I had the opportunity, as a Ukrainian, to receive my education in my mother tongue. After Crimea was occupied, even the word *Ukrainian* was erased from my school's name. The language of instruction became Russian. Although Ukrainian was still officially offered as an additional subject, teachers encouraged students not to attend Ukrainian language classes, warning that doing so could lead to punishment and even affect their chances of being admitted to a university.

My story could easily be part of this book because what I have experienced in my own life is exactly what this book describes. I hope more people read it and come to understand the harm being done to so many languages and the communities that speak them around the world.

Thank you, Sophia, for writing this book and for sharing your story. It was also a pleasure to listen to your own voice and to hear the story of your Nonna.

[Graeme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find books on language and linguistics can be overly academic and impersonal, which is why this book is so refreshing. The title might make you think this book is all about what's killing minority languages but if anything it's about the people themselves who speak these languages and their love and determination to keep them alive. It's made me determined to learn finally learn Welsh which I think means the book has done exactly what it's set out to do.

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Language is an encoding of culture, ethnicity, and politics.

The book looks at how languages die or are killed or ignored or just cease to be. The number of languages covered are from various continents and countries as varied as Equador (Kichwa), Ghana (Dagbani), Ukraine (Ukrainian), USA (Karuk) and Oman (Śḥehrɛ̄t). The story is also personal for the author as she ties to connect with her grandmother (nonna) and her mother tongues (both Italian and Emilian). This narrative pervades through a book as she reconnects with her roots through learning Emilian (referred to as al Dialet in the book).

When we lose a language we lose a way of life, a way to describe out past, our rituals, our culture and most of all the traditional knowledge systems that have passed down generation. This is also driven by network effect as well as commercial value of a language. There are several mechanism through which a language diminishes. Sociolinguist Joshua Fishman called it the Three-Generation Shift Model, in which the immigrant grandparents are the native speakers of their heritage language and usually acquire limited proficiency in the new language of their host country or region. This change is driven my migration due to availability of jobs, urbanization, government policy or just migration. The second generation act as bilingual brokers between their families and the country they were born in, ultimately becoming dominant in the language of the recipient country or city instead. By the time they have children, the language shift has become so total that it is likely they will speak mostly monolingually at home.

Each chapter is based on a single language how it has thrived, declined or revived. In Oman, language was used to unify people leading to the reduced prestige of Jibbali (also called Śḥehrɛ̄t) as aprt of nation building. Language is used as a means of extermination and genocide in war such as in Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia and Ukraine. For Ukrainians, speaking their language is a form of resilience, resistance and importantly defiance against Russian aggression. The Kurds are another ethno-linguistic groups whose language is being suppressed. Kurdistan was divided by the British and French after the fall of the Ottoman empire across 4 nations - Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria who have tried different and brutal ways to curb the use of Kurdish language. In another chapter we learn about Ladino - a language of Sephardic Jews from Spain who migrated to Greece. It survives in ballads and songs but Greek tried to exterminate it during WWII. Another great example of language which is slowly being revived is the Native American Kuruk. Kuruk is a Native American tribe in Northern California near Klamath falls. Language is being preserved by master-apprenticeship relationships and being funded by the state - though that is now threatened by Trump's nativist imposition of English. There is also the story of Israel which has revived the Hebrew language as a everyday vernacular from just being the sacred language of the Jews.

The book is not comprehensive but gives a good swathe of examples of how languages change, thrive, diminish or are revived from around the world. From my own experiences, I could recollect the use of Estonian in nation building after the disintegration of USSR or the use of Hindi in India which was made from different dialects spoken in the Gangetic plains (mostly Khariboli). This is a great book to read if you are interested in language evolution and history and it's deep connection to culture and knowledge.

[Kyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linguistics is politics, politics is people, we are people.

[Anna Heledd · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a perfect book to feast on as a linguist. So much fascinating info about different cultures. I LOVE BEING BILINGUAL!!

[Sindija · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I have found it frustrating when certain words translated into English don’t express things the ways that I’d want them to, making it feel like there’s just no correct way to fully translate some things, I had not considered the knowledge that can be lost when a language dies. It’s not just that there may not be a perfect direct translation, sometimes certain words or terminology just don’t exist outside of a specific language as they are culturally and locally specific.

It’s not a book that places blame on people who do end up loosing a language but it does make you reflect on if maybe you could find a way to hold on. I think it’s very easy to look at things in life and place value on them based on how useful they are for things like your career. However, sometimes it’s nice to do something just because you can.

[Gabrielle Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT! This was the first non-fiction book I’ve read in years, and whilst it is obviously meticulously and delicately researched, the tone being conversational renders the book both accessible and a joy to read. I had to pace myself throughout the reading of this book, as I didn’t want to miss anything through skimming – a quite deliberate choice that I will be implementing for other non-fiction books in the future.

The decision to not italicise other languages’ words is genius for the wider mission of not ‘othering’ languages. Admittedly, at the beginning, I found it slightly jarring, however, by the end I found the seamless translations brilliantly sufficient to not hinder my understanding at all, but in fact enhance the experience and immersion on the author’s multilingual journey.

Reading about current affairs (Ukraine-Russia war, Israel-Palestine conflict, climate crisis, postcolonialism) from a linguistic perspective and focusing on languages was very interesting, something that has been grossly underrepresented in other coverage – the blatant linguicide explored throughout the book, one I wasn’t aware of before, sheds new light on these conflicts and issues.

Finally, the conclusion reminded me of my EPQ research question: “To what extent should the world speak one language?” People often ask me why I bother studying MFL as in 50 years or so “the whole world will speak English”. Luckily, I don’t think that will ever be the case. A point they often bring up is that of facilitating communication between the worlds’ diverse communities, but they fail to recognise that some “communication” would be lost in translation in English – a different language translates so much more than words, it allows us to understand a history, community, etymology, religion, wildlife, etc. “Politics is increasingly polarized in countries like the UK and US where everyone speaks the same language; a common language alone does not unite us or solve the world’s problems” is certainly a point I’ll be recounting to the pessimistic monologuists of the world.

PS. Big love to the loml and lecturer whose modules on Indigenous identity and culture have proved useful outside the classroom ❤️ my man 🕊️ – everyone told me I was silly to continue picking his modules year in year out, but look at me now!!

[Ben Kitchener · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I saw this book I knew I had to order it, having learnt minortised languages such as Welsh and Catalan. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t feature as much, as the book’s scope is a true testament to Sophia Smith Galer’s incredibly in depth researching - going beyond the oft-cited European examples to encapsulate a truly global study of language loss. Yet the most powerful part of this book is how every chapter ties language loss to the real world people it affects. I hope many English speakers who’ve ask ‘Why learn X language?’ read this call to action and understand what we’re missing out on.

[Christopher Small · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good stuff in this—but simply too journalistic to be much other than a breezy but superficial gloss on the subject of language and language loss. Even in the final, more personal chapter, I missed a sense of sprawl or ambiguity: it's like a perfectly pitched journalistic assignment, balanced and responsible but much artistic character to speak of.

[Tobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

📚 Put “How to Kill a Language” by Sophia Smith Galer at the top of your must-read book pile.

"How to Kill a Language" shows off why Sophia Smith Galer is a public intellectual in the best sense: she identifies what is important, does the work to deeply understand it, and then communicates in a way that is both informative and interesting—dare we say, even entertaining.

The topic is important. Half the world's roughly 7,000 languages are projected to disappear this century. Language is a defining feature of being human, and the right to one’s language is a human right. Who gets to decide which language counts is a question about whose humanity counts and whose humanity is being lost.

Smith Galer writes a book that manages to weave a story of big issues with the personal. She frames the big issues of nationalism, colonialism, global languages, and linguicide with the experiences of those whose languages are being lost. This includes her own Nonna's dialët (local Italian language) that Smith Galer can understand but never learned to speak herself. It’s a story that shows the experience of language loss. Language is what we inherit, but it can be lost…and it can be saved. The book shows how peoples are resisting and preserving their languages.

And for the actual language nerds, there are insights into the unique features of endangered languages and how they reflect the richness of the human experience. I’m going to get the audio book, too, just to hear Smith Galer manage all the languages she presents. If anyone can do it, she can.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book to read—I have so much to say! I've followed Sophia for a while for the linguistics and language content she has posted on Instagram and TikTok, especially for her Spanish language stuff, which has always been more my forte. What made this book for me was her selection of atypical and unknown cases of language death that one would not appreciate or even know about.

If you were to ask me to write this book, the first thing to come to my mind would be Basque or Catalan (in the Iberian context), the Irish language, and the variety number of indigenous languages that were lost over the centuries and ones today that are on the brink of extinction. But in the case of this book, she decided on Italian (who would have thought one could talk about language death with Italian), Ukranian (Which I assumed was far more spoken in Ukraine than it does), Ladino (which I knew about, but her story gave me new insights into the language), Hebrew (such a creative choice to talk about language death with probably the most successfully revived language), and Kichwa (a variety of Quechua spoken in Ecuador, with notable and important differences from varieties spoken in Peru, Bolivia, etc). There are more languages, each of them chosen for a specific reason, which proves the level of detail, research, and journalistic integrity with which she has imbued this book.

[Nikos Dunno · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to discover Sophia's work in short form at a time when the entire world was being told to stay at home and keep their distance from each other; she opened up new worlds to me and i was instantly able to relate to her love for languages. I was incredibly happy when I got to meet her in person as she was presenting this ever so important book.

The best way to enjoy it, is in hybrid form by following the lines in the book as she's narrating them in audiobook form to you. Her grasp of accents is astounding. Her passion for language storytelling is infectious, and the emotions in her voice when she talks about/to her nonna make for an equally heartbreaking and inspiring read.

[Nina]

I <333 boeken over taal (ik heb niet voor niets twee masterdiploma's in de (toegepaste, maar goed) taalkunde zeker?

Fijne mix tussen persoonlijke verhalen en informatie, interessante mix van talen en goed gestructureerd. Ideaal als luisterboek omdat je dan ook hoort hoe de woorden (ongeveer) uitgesproken worden.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I think SSG has my dream career and dream life (Japanese honeymoon pls).

Mostly though this was such a good read! Anything about languages is always going to entice me but this was skilfully researched, narrated and very accessible (not too academic feeling at all but grounded in linguistic research). I did know a bit about linguicide before but I found the examples and themes that Sophia picked out very insightful. Surprise surprise, I found the chapter about Hebrew absolutely fascinating (also justice for Yiddish and Ladino)

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this time of AI and online translators, when it’s argued that there’s no need to learn a language beyond your own, this book presents so many beautiful and compelling reasons why we lose so much by not valuing languages.

[Fhaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has inspired me to learn my ancestral language (Bahasa Minang). Idk if I will succeed in doing so since it’s quite difficult to find written works in the language but who knows. Reading this was so thought-provoking that I’ve decided to start a reading journal where I write down my thoughts during reading lol.

[Fatima Sheriff · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very passionate treatise on the rich inner worlds lost when languages go extinct, and an evaluation of individuals and frameworks all over the world that try and keep them alive. it's upsetting at times but overall hopeful!

[A Mind on Loan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bacaan kali ini buat aku faham bahawa bahasa bukan sekadar alat komunikasi. Ia punya identiti, budaya, memori dan rasa memiliki. Pada masa yang sama, buku ini membawa aku menyelusuri pelbagai tempat, bersama budaya dan sejarah politik yang turut membentuk bahasa mereka.

Bila buku ni mula kaitkan bahasa dengan identity dan wellbeing, ada satu bahagian yang menarik perhatian aku, perihal Indigenous languages dan suicide rates. Kajian menunjukkan komuniti yang masih boleh berkomunikasi dalam bahasa Indigenous, mereka mempunyai kadar bunuh diri dalam kalangan belia yang jauh lebih rendah. Mungkin bahasa di sini bukan semata-mata protective, tapi juga tanda bahawa cultural continuity masih kuat. Mereka masih ada connection dengan komuniti, identiti dan cara hidup mereka.

Aku suka juga bagaimana buku ni mengaitkan language dengan politics dan power. Bahasa yang digunakan dalam education, government dan writing mendapat lebih banyak institutional power, dan akhirnya ada bahasa yang menjadi national atau international language sementara bahasa lain semakin terpinggir.

Bila masuk chapter Hebrew, aku tak gemar dengan cara penulis frame Israel–Palestine. Bagi aku, keseluruhan framing dia terasa terlalu berlapik dan misleading. Ada acknowledgement tentang Nakba, Palestinian displacement dll, tapi pada masa yang sama, Hebrew revival ini sangat rapat dengan naratif tentang Israel “winning”, seolah-olah political, territorial dan linguistic victory tu boleh dibaca sebagai satu cerita yang sama. Penggunaan term “war” juga bagi aku oversimplify a very unequal political reality into two sides simply fighting each other.

Dan ini terasa janggal sebab buku ni sendiri banyak mengajar kita bahawa language is political. Words can obscure, soften and reframe violence. Jadi aku rasa bahasa yang penulis pilih untuk describe Israel–Palestine pun patut dibaca dengan scrutiny yang sama.

Ironically, buku ni cakap perihal the politics of language tapi buat aku question the politics of its own framing. Dan sebab itu, keseluruhan reading experience aku agak terganggu.

[Macarena · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[kurdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now one of my favourite books. Thoroughly researched and made me quite emotional, especially seeing that Kurdish was included which I wasn’t expecting and something that has affected my family. My great grandmother only spoke Kurdish, my grandma knew both Kurdish & Turkish, my dad only speaks Turkish and can understand a lot of the Kurdish of the region where’s hes from, but can’t speak it so it now has not been passed onto me, however I am trying to learn it. Thank you Sophia for this important work, you’re amazing 🙏

[Olga · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic is fascinating, the breadth of research impressive. But the writing was dull and somehow the depth of reporting felt like it only scratched the surface. The narrative felt shapeless, the different aspects of killing a language (emigrate, build, occupy, expel etc.) seemed barely pronounced.

[Aurore Choupie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book overall, although I sometimes found it lacked rigor and scientific method.

The chapters were of varied quality. The most interesting and profund were those linked with the personnal history of the author.

Cleaving analysis proposed for the Hebrew language.

I'm looking forward for more books by the author

3 stars.

Language book