Endangered Language Alliance Preserves Dying Languages in New York City

An organization called the Endangered Language Alliance is working to preserve dying languages in New York City.

New York City may be one of the only places in the world where you can always count on getting a knish at 3 AM if the urge strikes you. But along with its diverse cuisine and culture, it’s also home to some of the world’s rarest languages.

There’s Garifuna, a language passed on from African slaves who were shipwrecked in the Caribbean and then sent to Central America. Vlashki, a language originating from the mountain regions of Croatia, is more common in New York than in its homeland. And a small neighborhood in Flushing, Queens, is home to Ormuti, a rare language from the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Altogether, researchers estimate that the city is home to around 800 separate languages. “It is the capital of language density in the world,” Daniel Kaufman, an adjunct professor of linguistics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, told the New York Times. “We’re sitting in an endangerment hot spot where we are surrounded by languages that are not going to be around even in 20 or 30 years.”

Language is about more than just sound—it’s cultural memory. When a language dies, so does a piece of its people’s history. So the City University Graduate Center knew that something must be done to preserve the heritage of these endangered languages with just a few living speakers. They’ve created the Endangered Language Alliance to record and document endangered languages from all over the world. And because so many obscure languages have a presence in New York, they won’t have to travel far to do it.

The researchers are even doing their part to help the languages remain alive in the community. They’ve asked Daowd I. Salih, a refugee from Darfur, to teach his tribal language, Massalit, to a New York University linguistics course. With his help, the students are working to create a formal lexicography of the endangered tongue.

“Language is identity,” said Salih. “This is the land of opportunity, so these students can help us write this language instead of losing it.”

Learn more about the organization on its website.