Status Updates From LANGUAGE CITY

Found this in Helsinki! This book explains language diversity in New York, staring from brief introduction of linguistics and history of New York. So far, really interesting.

"The task [of translating New York signage into various minority languages] is enormously complicated, though not necessarily prohibitively expensive – especially if local community experts like those at the Indigenous Interpreters Collective can be involved, rather than outsourcing to exploitative private companies."

🇾🇪 "Around half of New York's ten thousand bodegas are thought to be Yemeni owned, and the owners have become ever more of a political force since the Yemeni bodega strike of 2017, which protested the Muslim travel ban."

"For the poor and undocumented, there are basic fears around trying to access medical care. No public health system in the world was prepared for [COVID], but nowhere was the need more pressing than New York in March 2020. A few days could make a difference, and speakers of less common languages were suddenly at a life-or-death disadvantage."

The improbable revival of Yiddish due to the growth of conservative Hasidic groups: "Given the Hasidic birthrate, Yiddish is now growing at a ferocious rate, with half of all New York speakers under the age of eighteen. Demographically, it has gone from one of the city's "oldest" languages to one of the youngest ... For a secular Yiddishist, the Hasidic revival can be supremely ironic, fascinating, and frustrating."