Sophia Smith Galer: How to Kill a Language

Sophia Smith Galer's 'How to Kill a Language' examines the accelerating loss of linguistic diversity worldwide, blending reportage, history and interviews with speakers and activists. The book traces multiple mechanisms that lead to language decline — from overt bans and colonialism to stigma, shame and neglect — and shows how these forces interact with migration, nation-building and climate change. Galer visits communities across the globe, including diasporas, indigenous populations, and endangered-language speakers, to document both loss and resistance. She also interrogates celebrated revival narratives and highlights the urgent need to record and support endangered languages before they disappear. The work advocates for better-funded mother-tongue and heritage-language education and for preserving languages as repositories of cultural knowledge.

In this book, Steven Pinker argues that language is an innate human ability, produced by evolution to solve the problem of communication among social hunter-gatherers. He explains how language works, how children learn it, how it changes, and how the brain computes it. Pinker refutes common ideas such as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and the notion that language is a human invention. He supports his argument with examples from linguistics, psychology, and popular culture, emphasizing that language is a specialized 'mental module' rather than a mark of advanced intelligence. The book also includes updates on advances in the science of language since its initial publication.