120: How (not) to kill a language - Interview with Sophia Smith Galer

About this episode

Narratives about smaller languages often focus on the death and endangerment sides of the story. There's generally less on the social and political reasons why some languages are favoured at the expense of others, and how community members are working on reconnecting with their languages. In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic with Sophia Smith Galer about her new book, How to Kill a Language. We talk about Sophia's personal experience with Italian dialect from her nonna and mum growing up, how she moved from BBC journalism to vertical video about language, and how those things combined into writing a book highlighting the active ways that languages are suppressed by educational policies, shaming parents into not passing down their language to their children, colonial violence -- and what community members are doing to fight back. We also talk about travelling on a budget, talking with diaspora speakers, and how Sophia started an Italian language cafe in London to create the welcoming language practice space she wished she'd had. Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvd