An detail from the cover art of Ross Perlin’s ‘Language City: The Fight To Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues’ from Grove Press UK
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
On ‘the Urban Soundscape’ and Endangered Languages
Overnight in London, the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding has named linguist Ross Perlin the winner of its 2024 award for his book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues from Grove Atlantic (and its United Kingdom arm, Grove Press UK).
Perlin is co-director of Manhattan’s Endangered Language Alliance, a nonprofit organization which has a sister Canadian organization in Toronto and has worked with speakers of more than 100 languages.
As many Publishing Perspectives readers know from our coverage of such programs as South Africa’s Puku Foundation, contemporary communications media—and the growing power of English as the lingua franca—have accelerated the abandonment of many languages in various parts of the world. Perlin’s organization sees this as “a massive silencing of linguistic diversity on every continent, related to the ongoing ‘sixth extinction’ of biological species.”
Perlin uses his organization’s home base of New York City to illuminate the history of migration into the city through its many languages (starting with the Lenni Lenape or “Delaware people’s” Lenape language, which belonged to the Algonquin linguistic family.) He is also the author of the 2012 release Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy from Verso Books.
The British Academy Book Prize pays £25,000 (US$32,367) to its winner, with each of the shortlisted writers receiving £1,000 (US$1,294).
Charles Tripp, speaking for the jury in last evening’s announcement (October 22), said, “Language City is a fascinating, captivating social history and contemporary linguistic account of New York City. It offers readers a unique perspective of the city that brings out both the precarity but also the resilience of migrants and their rich and varied languages as they seek to adapt their native tongues to 21st century urban life. At a time when many languages worldwide are disappearing, Ross Perlin celebrates the subtleties of linguistic diversity, treating each with sensitivity and humanity.”
Our readers from the United States, of course, will catch a reference here from Tripp to “concern” for those who live and speak the hundreds of languages of New York City, and whose immigration patterns have made the city and country what they are—in a US election season that’s so deeply challenging to the polyglot essence of the American experiment.
Charles Tripp
“New York City is home to more than 700 languages,” Tripp writes, as “‘the most linguistically diverse city in the history of the world.’ And by examining them Perlin opens out new ways of thinking about the exuberant variety of these aspects of the urban soundscape, which we might otherwise take for granted or ignore.
“Perlin’s research is dynamic and immediate; it’s about what’s happening now, right in front of us, as we witness the flux of everyday life. It was a real pleasure for the jurors to read, even if our reading was tinged with concern for the subjects of these entrancing narratives.
“Yet we also saw in this an affirmation of the wealth of the cultures embodied in these languages and the determination and ingenuity of their speakers to retain something of great value—a determination shared by the author and enhanced by his work with the Endangered Language Alliance.”
Julia Black
Julia Black, president of the British Academy, said, “The British Academy Book Prize celebrates exceptional research and the role of nonfiction in bringing to light new perspectives on global histories and cultural identity. Language City is a beautifully crafted social history and a stark reminder of the human connection that languages enable.
“We know from our own work at the Academy that the take-up of language study is in decline and there is an urgent need to reverse this trend. This book perfectly captures what’s at stake if we don’t act now to preserve and enhance languages and the study of them. We believe that a linguistically diverse society benefits everyone and this book demonstrates that perfectly. On behalf of the British Academy, it is my great honor to congratulate Ross Perlin for his exceptional work.”
As you’ll recall, the shortlist for this year’s competition was selected from 263 submissions, published between April 1, 2023, and March 31 of this year.
Tripp was joined this year on the jury panel by:
- Rebecca Earle, food historian and professor of history at the University of Warwick
- Bridget Kendall, former BBC foreign correspondent
- Ritula Shah. journalist and broadcaster
- Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, professor of comparative religion and philosophy at Lancaster University
The British Academy Prize 2024 Shortlist
Ross Perlin
Two of the books on the shortlist this year came from independent publishers: the winning Perlin book from Grove Press UK and Annabel Sowemimo’s book from Profile Books’ Wellcome Collection.
As it has turned out, the winning entry, Ross Perlin’s book, is from Grove, one of the two independents.
Penguin Random House had two books s shortlisted—from imprints WH Allen and Viking—while HarperCollins India’s John Murray Press and Harvard University Press each had one book on the list.
Previous Winners
- Nandini Das for Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (2023)
- Alia Trabucco Zerán for When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold (2022)
- Sujit Sivasundaram for Waves Across the South (2021)
- Hazel V. Carby for Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands (2020)
- Toby Green for A Fistful of Shells: West Africa From the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019)
- Kapka Kassabova for Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2018);
- Timothy Garton Ash for Free Speech (2017)
- Carole Hillenbrand for Islam: A New Historical Introduction (2016)
- Neil MacGregor for A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation (2015)
This prize was first awarded in 2013, and was formerly known as the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, a reference to the donor behind the award. Eligible nonfiction this year was published in the United Kingdom between April 1 of last year and March 31. Authors entered in this program may be of any nationality, based anywhere in the world, and working in any language, as long as a nominated work is available in English.
More from Publishing Perspectives on publishing and book award programs is here, and on the British Academy Book Prize in its renamed iteration is here. More from us on the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, the honor’s original iteration, is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s book market is here.
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