This fascinating book, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, describes the plight of a number of threatened languages in various corners of the world, as well as efforts to save them.

The book’s author, David Harrison, is a young linguist whose focus is on documenting, recording and studying (and possibly saving) endangered languages. He does this by traveling to the furthest reaches of Mongolia, Siberia, Papua New Guinea or Paraguay, tracking down the (often octogenarian) last surviving

This fascinating book, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, describes the plight of a number of threatened languages in various corners of the world, as well as efforts to save them.The book’s author, David Harrison, is a young linguist whose focus is on documenting, recording and studying (and possibly saving) endangered languages. He does this by traveling to the furthest reaches of Mongolia, Siberia, Papua New Guinea or Paraguay, tracking down the (often octogenarian) last surviving speakers of a local language, and interviewing them at length. With the help of recordings and videotapes, his team creates a record of languages that may be just a few dozen speakers away from being silenced forever.In the best National Geographic tradition, the book is part travelogue, part anthropology, and part missionary zeal. The travel parts were fun to read for armchair travelers. Flying to Mongolia in a decrepit Soviet-area plane, or navigating down a dangerous river in the rain forest of South America, living with nomads in their yurts… all good stuff. The anthropology parts, about shamans and rituals, were also fascinating. The “zeal” part, where the author makes an impassioned plea to save endangered languages, was a bit overpowering. I don’t disagree with his argument that the local languages of so-called primitive spots on the globe contain a wealth of information about the natural world that we could put to good use in these times of pollution, deforestation and global warming. I totally agree with the statement that being bilingual may be as good for your brain as doing Sudoku puzzles. But the same arguments and statements, and the parallel between endangered species and languages, were trotted out quite repetitively in the course of the book.The author does seem rather full of himself, and is very liberal with references to "my team" and "my idea" and "the term I coined". Being a bit of a language geek, I liked the parts about language itself best. The author had chosen his examples with care. I found it fascinating to read about the many ways in which new words or concepts can be expressed. For instance, in some villages close to a river, the usual way of saying where you are going is not by saying “ I am going to x”, but by saying “I am upstreaming to X”. And if you find yourself on a different part of the bank, you would say “I am downstreaming to X”. Another language has several words that we would just translate by the word “to stand”, depending on who is standing. Another language has several words to describe reindeers or yurts of various ages, reproductive status, fur color and other parameters. The descriptions of field work in the linguistics field made for great reading. The author seems to have been involved in in-depth, multi-week visits to specific regions, as well as in some shorter visits to various language hotspots around the globe. I think that the scientific value of these fly-in and fly-out visits is probably limited… but they seem to have been conceptualized more as a dramatic way of drawing attention to the risk of losing endangered languages, than as an encyclopedic exercise. Still, I found it fun to read about how the team would try to track down the last speakers of a specific language and try to coax them into speaking. For the author, it’s not just about the language, but also about the content of the knowledge that is passed on in that language. Whether it is a story about navigating the inhospitable tundra, or about a girl being sold as a bride, or about aboriginal creation myths, this is not the stuff you find in most books about language! I also found it interesting to read how some languages survive and others don’t. The recurring refrain is that the younger generation has typically been taught to speak in English, Russian, English or some other language, and that they have been made to feel that there is some shame associated with speaking a “primitive” language. Older people tell of having been punished in school for speaking their own language. And yet, there is also a special language for (male) shamans in one tribe, a language that is not learned at birth, but acquired in adolescence, when a young male is selected for training as a shaman. Or there is a language that flourishes in the middle of Mexico City, hidden in plain sight in a bustling Spanish-speaking metropolis. Or a language that is spoken by some members of the family but not others, a language that is so secret that often the speakers in one isolated village don’t know who in the next village might speak the same language. In summary, although the message that endangered languages are in need of, and deserving of, being saved, is rammed home a couple of times too often, this is an engrossing book, a real treat for anyone interested in language, communication, or even plain old armchair traveling.