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The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages

K. David Harrison

3.87 · Rating details · 416 ratings · 50 reviews

Part travelogue and part scientist's notebook, The Last Speakers is the poignant chronicle of author K. David Harrison's expeditions around the world to meet with last speakers of vanishing languages. The speakers' eloquent reflections and candid photographs reveal little-known lifeways as well as revitalization efforts to teach disappearing languages to younger generation ...more

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published September 21st 2010 by National Geographic (first published January 1st 2010)

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Mar 01, 2011 Pattie rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
Trilingual
What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
Bilingual
What do you call someone who speaks only 1 language?
American

As English, Spanish and Russian seep into every last corner of the globe, "Last Speakers" is an excellent argument that languages encode different ways of thinking about and viewing the world, and that the loss these languages in the face of more dominant languages will result in the a loss of those unique perspectives.

The ...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Annelise rated it did not like it

Shelves: language

No information that was of any particular interest or use to someone with even a modest linguistics background like myself, just vague descriptions that didn't even make all that much sense without examples. And the author could not get over himself. He actually devoted half a chapter to discussing a meme he started and how many facebook friends he has. That was his most egregious act of self-promotion, but the rest of the book was sprinkled well enough to taint. ...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Dree rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, memoir-biography-autobiography, 2011-reads

I did enjoy this book--actually, it's fascinating. It is also all over the place.

I was expecting some straight-up nonfiction (languages that are dying out, what is unique to each, etc etc). This book is more of a memoir: Harrison's experiences with last speakers, the difficulties of traveling to them, logistics, why they are the last speakers, etc etc. I love me a memoir, but it was so not what I was expecting. I would rather read about the languages than about the problems of traveling with cam ...more

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Dec 28, 2013 Wesley Gerrard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, non-fiction, foreign-languages, geography, translation-studies, travel, ancient-history, reference

I found this an absolutely fascinating, inspiring tale that truly opened my eyes to one of the planet's scariest phenomena... We hear of endangered wildlife and how our modern industrial society is harming the environment. We hear of other worrying global issues. But, often neglected and hardly publicised, is the very real situation of the reduction in global language diversity. (Minor) languages, often spoken by marginalised tribespeople in remote areas of the Earth, are disappearing into the a I found this an absolutely fascinating, inspiring tale that truly opened my eyes to one of the planet's scariest phenomena... We hear of endangered wildlife and how our modern industrial society is harming the environment. We hear of other worrying global issues. But, often neglected and hardly publicised, is the very real situation of the reduction in global language diversity. (Minor) languages, often spoken by marginalised tribespeople in remote areas of the Earth, are disappearing into the annals of history (or remaining unrecorded) as they fade into extinction. We are losing human knowledge at a great rate. This knowledge has accumulated over a great period of time and has characteristics which simply cannot be translated or encoded into larger, more powerful global languages. We think that in our modern world, we have an abundance of knowledge and have improved communication. The invention of the internet and spread of the English language as the dominant lingua franca for global business gives us a false sense of arrogance and superiority. The erosion of ancient knowledge makes us poorer as a global human society, however... Harrison elegantly argues the case for the desperate need to preserve and revitalise these strange tongues ion far-flung places. I think that one of his most valid points in the argument for preservation of language diversity, is that these languages contain critical knowledge of local environments, usually in places which are at most risk of tipping the scale in the imbalance of climate change and environmental degradation which has been demonstrated to affect us all, wherever we may live, and whatever our chosen first language might be. The book is intellectual, but accessible. It provokes serious thinking and demonstrates the careful study and hard graft put in by researchers and indeed last speakers of the most critically endangered tongues. I have close links to Wales and New Zealand which are both leading the way in the mass revitalisation of endangered languages, ie. Maori and Welsh... The mass education program in schools in both of these countries clearly demonstrates the cultural value inherent in revitalisation efforts and serves as a model to other language hotspots where the loss of culture, knowledge and language is at its most perilous. As a student of language, who aims to continue his own understanding of linguistic communication on our planet, I would highly recommend this book which I have given a maximum five star-rating. ...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Holly rated it liked it

This book is a non-fiction account of the author's journeys around the world recording dying languages. The stories of the people he encounters and the languages and how they work is very interesting, and I loved that part of the book. However, he does a lot of preaching and teaching about linguistics in general, which made parts of the book read like a Masters Thesis. It wasn't thick, just kind of boring. I think it would have been a better book and reached a bigger audience if he had written m ...more

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Oct 19, 2010 Laura rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cross-cultural, history, nonfiction, language

Fantastic book for anyone interested in language, oral storytelling, environmentalism, and the impact of colonialism and globalization. The tragedy of the rapid loss of linguistic diversity is slightly off-set by the important work that Harrison and other scholars are doing, not to mention tribal people themselves who are rallying to preserve their languages. This book offers an especially important message for those who arrogantly believe that literacy and knowledge are the the same thing or th ...more

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Mar 13, 2018 Craig Rowland rated it liked it

I saw The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison while visiting a public library during a visit last month to Los Angeles. I noted the title and requested it via interloan when I got home. The fabulous dedicated staff of my library system's Interloans Department found the book--and I had it in my hands--within four days of my original request. Talk about speedy service.

My armchair education experience involves studying endangered languages, sp ...more

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Jan 09, 2015 Ann rated it really liked it

Shelves: language-books

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.
...more

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Jan 30, 2017 Nathan Albright rated it really liked it

Shelves: challenge2017

My feelings about this book are somewhat complicated, but not because of anything that is in the book itself. The book itself is an excellent one, but the context that book is in is a troubling one. For one, this book is a somewhat obvious cash grab on the part of National Geographic to take advantage of the unexpected popular success and critical acclaim of the documentary film The Linguists, which explored the author and some of the speakers of nearly extinct languages he sees around the world ...more

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Oct 24, 2010 Christopher rated it liked it · review of another edition

The linguist K. David Harrison has been one of the most tireless activists for protecting the world's diversity of languages, some 7,000 or so by his count, but disappearing at a rapid rate through globalization. He wrote an impassioned argument for language preservation in WHEN LANGUAGES DIE, and the recent documentary film THE LINGUISTS about his work has won great praise. Harrison's new book THE LAST SPEAKERS is something of a combination of these two previous accounts written for a very broa The linguist K. David Harrison has been one of the most tireless activists for protecting the world's diversity of languages, some 7,000 or so by his count, but disappearing at a rapid rate through globalization. He wrote an impassioned argument for language preservation in WHEN LANGUAGES DIE, and the recent documentary film THE LINGUISTS about his work has won great praise. Harrison's new book THE LAST SPEAKERS is something of a combination of these two previous accounts written for a very broad audience. On one hand, it's a print account of the fun of doing fieldwork and working with small language communities as in the film, while on the other hand Harrison repeats his scholarly arguments for language diversity in a simpler, more straightforward fashion. Having received a review copy, my opinions are a bit mixed.

For the general public, I suppose this can be a quick read (its 250 pages or so go by fast) and an often fun one. Harrison explains pretty clear what it's like to be a linguist, at least a field-oriented one. Linguists, Harrison explains, aren't simply people who "speak a lot of languages", or interpreters or translators. Rather, they are scientists, and their explorations are best carried out not among dusty bookstacks, but with communities that are united around a language. Good fieldwork, Harrison says, means immersing yourself in the daily lives of speakers. Thus we hear some amusing anecdotes about slaughtering a sheep with a nomad family, or hearing the blue guitar music of a young person in Papua New Guinea.

This book repeats much of WHEN LANGUAGE DIES, and I was sad to see that it repeats some of the flawed argumentation of that prior volume. Namely, Harrison makes a case for action against language death by holding that traditional languages pass down useful knowledge through the generations simply by being used, and this knowledge is lost through adopting an outside language. He speaks of languages where names for months are tied to the agriculture or hunting cycle, and thus native speakers grow up with a knowledge of the natural world, but some speakers have given up their traditional calendars and use only the Western one. However, ultimately this loss of knowledge isn't necessarily due to language shift, but to other political and social pressures. The same forces which encourage language shift, such as industrialization and urbanization, are those which tend to replace traditional ways of life altogether. When people are living in large blocks of flats in the city, going to work in offices or factories, is the traditional calendar any more meaningful than the new one?

Indeed, Harrison notes in this book that a Siberian Turkic population he studies, who herd reindeer and have an abundant lexicon for their way of life, had previously used some other, unknown language and switched to Turkic possibly only a couple of centuries ago. Clearly language shift happened in that context without a loss of information, because these people keep going on herding reindeer efficiently. The problem of loss of information is therefore not language shift in itself.

Still, even if I don't agree with some points, I think this book could be profitably read by almost everyone. The amount of repetition makes it seem like bad value, but some may find it a worthwhile purchase. I'd even cautiously recommend it to actual linguists in the hope that it would encourage the more sedentary researchers to go out and do fieldwork. It's fun! ...more

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Apr 05, 2014 Yaaresse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: social-sciences, first-read-2014, non-fiction, language-speech-and-dialects

This is an introduction to the work of field linguists who specialize in documenting endangered languages. The author is a professor at Swarthmore College, affiliated with the National Geographic Enduring Voices Project, and director of the Living Tongues Institute. He is often credited with spurring the revival of field work (as opposed to theoretical study) in linguistics.

The book is an easy read and contains some amusing and interesting stories about Harrison's travels around the world to fi This is an introduction to the work of field linguists who specialize in documenting endangered languages. The author is a professor at Swarthmore College, affiliated with the National Geographic Enduring Voices Project, and director of the Living Tongues Institute. He is often credited with spurring the revival of field work (as opposed to theoretical study) in linguistics.

The book is an easy read and contains some amusing and interesting stories about Harrison's travels around the world to find the last fluent speakers of dying languages. Obviously, the intrepid linguist isn't afraid to rough it a bit, whether that means tangling with surly minor Soviet officials/bullies or slogging through sand for days in the Australian Outback or helping a Mongolian nomadic family herd their yaks.

Harrison starts with an overview of his prep for this work and a very brief overview of what constitutes and endangered language. He then tells about his field work in Siberia, Mongolia, Australia, India and part of the US where First Nation languages are dying out.

The chapters sometimes read more like independent articles than a cohesive book. Some material is repeated more often than I felt necessary. Harrison obviously feels passionate about his work, and that does come across as preachy from time to time, but I'm not sure that pontifical stance isn't warranted given our society's cavalier attitude about minorities and our miserable track record of respect for non-mainstream cultures.

Harrison's argument is that every time a language dies, the knowledge of the speakers is lost, especially knowledge about the natural world. He also argues that language is more than grammatical rules and vocabulary, that its knowledge is based on how the human brain organically shapes concepts and builds information networks, that to lose a language means losing information about how the mind works with concepts. I don't disagree, but neither do I think Harrison argues his point effectively.

One of Harrison's complaints is about critics who say about dying languages "Let them die as part of the natural cycle of things" or "if everyone spoke one language, it would be better because we could all communicate." I can't help but imagine that the people who are on the "one language" train aren't all assuming that one language should be American English and how their response would differ if it was suggested the "one language" we should all speak be Spanish or Mandarin Chinese. I'm thinking they would change their minds very quickly.

The Last Speakers is written to appeal to the average reader who likely has no background in linguistics, the normal (read: terrible) grasp of world geography, and likely is looking more to be entertained by anecdotes than bogged down with dense technical information. ...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Jacob rated it really liked it

Shelves: languages

Really should be more like 3.5 stars.

The stories are interesting, and I like the message the author is trying to promote.
The writing is less than stellar. Somewhat condescending and self-aggrandizing at times.
Linguistically, there hints of information, and conflicting traces of various theories, but not much of either.

Still I like the message that we should value diversity and promote languages, including the small, nearly extinct, languages.

I like India's model of most people learning a local ...more

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Dec 02, 2010 Doylestown Bookshop added it · review of another edition

Shelves: customer-reviews

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Oct 18, 2013 Katie rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: linguistics nerds

Shelves: linguistics

**2.5 stars**

This book was an interesting read but not as compelling as I expected it to be.

I enjoyed reading about Harrison's travels to the world's "language hotspots," (where there is a high level of language diversity as well as a high threat of language extinction), and about his interactions with speakers of dying languages. However, lot of the other material relied more heavily on the author's opinions rather than facts (in the intro, he does refer to this book as an extended op-ed on th ...more

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Jul 03, 2014 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: anthropology, current-affairs

The preachy, vague writing in the first section annoyed me... until the author admitted he's just trying to write an extended op-ed piece on why we should save languages. That explains it.

After the author set forth his purpose, I enjoyed the book much more. Especially when he started talking about Siberian folk-tales and vowel harmony. I wanted to read more about the Tuvan heroine Bora, who doesn't have strength or a sense of direction at first, but ends up whooping the butts of tons of warriors ...more

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Feb 13, 2016 Annette rated it it was amazing

I think it is fascinating that there are individuals who love and understand linguistics, languages and cultures, and are making it point to study languages, and determine which languages are on the verge of extinction.
The fact that these individuals are going out of their way to discover and archive what is left, and to create a database, that may be used in the future for understanding the world we sometimes take for granted.
I like how the author pointed out that when a language is lost, so ...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Ashur rated it really liked it

Shelves: language

This was an enjoyable pop-linguistics book that as others have noted, reads like a half-travelogue. I have some background in linguistics but still found the material relevant and important, particularly as endangered languages and their preservation is important to me.

Harrison's descriptions of his time spent with speakers of Siberian languages was the most interesting to me, in terms of explaining how different languages encode different ways of knowing. However, I enjoyed them all and feel t ...more

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Aug 09, 2014 Joanne-in-Canada rated it really liked it

Shelves: language

A balanced blend of theory, research, anecdote and passion about the value of all human languages no matter how few their speakers. Harrison is particularly humourous at describing his first field experience. When he offers to help the people he is observing, he is deemed to be competent only to collect frozen yak manure patties and feeding the fire. (This, however, does involve him learning a lot of new vocabulary!) Throughout the book, he describes many different languages and cultures that he ...more

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Sep 02, 2014 Airi rated it liked it

I've read a couple other books on the language extinction crisis, and this is my favorite so far because it give s me the sense of a travelogue that I'm into reading lately while providing insights into the scholarly world of ethnolinguistics. It isn't burdened by jargon, which is what makes some of those other books so dry to read. It is a bit repetitive at times in terms of the overall thesis of the book, but then so are many other books on academic topics. It is a champion not only for lingui ...more

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Nov 20, 2014 Neill rated it really liked it

This is a thought-provoking book about languages on the brink of extinction, how knowledge is encoded in language, the relationship between language and culture, and what is being done to save endangered languages. The author is a passionate advocate for language diversity and for preserving and revitalizing languages on the brink of extinction. Although I agree with his viewpoint, he comes on a bit too strong. The book reads as a rebuttal which isn't the best tone to take with people who are ne ...more

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Jul 15, 2016 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 24-in-48-2016

Many thanks to Kate and Tyler for repeatedly telling me to read this.

The idea that lies at the core of Harrison's book is that small languages, those that are poorly studied or documented and with dwindling fluent speakers, encode unique and specialized knowledge about human culture and history. Often these languages are spoken by people considered on the bottom of the class structure by the "dominant" culture and correspond to equally endangered biodiverse regions of the world. I can't say muc ...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Kelli rated it it was amazing

Shelves: esl

I found this a completley engrossing read. Harrison's love for languages and the knowledge they embody is contagious. Though I have read Harrison's critics, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in language and culture, even if you don't subscribe completely to the author's theories. Other than the times when Harrison toots his own horn, the book is delightful. It has informed my perspective as an ESL professional, as well. ...more

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Sep 27, 2011 james rated it liked it

This book deals with the author's quest to preserve some of the languages that are quickly disappearing from humankind. He travels from Siberia to Bolivia to Arizona. The author contends that more effort should be expended saving not only the languages but the vast knowledge that accompanies same with the indiginous speakers. ...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Lisa rated it really liked it

A really enlightening read - living in Australia I am aware of how the local Aboriginal language is rapidly disappearing and I am very interested in finding out if there are any fluent or partially fluent Bunjalung speakers living locally. K David Harrison made me realize how important it is to save the diversity we still have. 885 million people speak Mandarin and only 1 speaks Wichita - sad.

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Jan 08, 2012 Brenna Swift rated it liked it

Not quite what I expected. It was an eye-opening book, but I could tell the author is used to academic writing. He takes too much time differentiating himself and his work from predecessors. He doesn't do this subtly, either. I found myself wishing that he would let the facts speak for themselves without the preachiness. And the facts WOULD speak for themselves. ...more

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Oct 15, 2013 Pedro Reynolds-cuellar rated it it was amazing

Shelves: language

One of the greatest if not the greatest calls for action in terms of language endangerment. David Harrison's narratives, descriptions and analyses put on the table in a clear, transparent way the question for cultural endangerment and societal equality.
Along with the rest of the materials associated with this National Geographic project, this book is a highlight regarding endangered languages. ...more

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Oct 22, 2013 Jason rated it liked it

This is a nice memoir of field linguistics. I found it's rationale for preserving minority languages (1 - every language has an ineffable essence that will be lost if it goes extinct or 2- hidden in an indigenous language might be the knowledge to cure cancer, etc.) a bit preachy, even though I accept the rationale, so I felt he was preaching to a proverbial choir here. ...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Aspasia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

Harrison gives the non-linguist an inside look at the fieldwork required to document a hidden and endangered language. This book will open your eyes to languages and ethnic groups you never hear about on the news.

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Jun 12, 2010 Cheryl added it

chapter "How do Stories Survive?" ...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Melanie H rated it really liked it

Interesting fast read. I learned a lot about the disappearance of languages. Reminds me (yet again!) that I need to get out into the world and experience it!

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About K. David Harrison

K. David Harrison

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K. David Harrison is a Canadian-American linguist, anthropologist, author, filmmaker, and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.