How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part One)

Intelligence Squared

News, Society & Culture, Arts, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do we lose when a language dies? Roughly 7,000 languages are spoken around the world today. Over half of them are expected to vanish in the next century – along with the wealth of information they contain, the family ties they represent, and the psychological benefits they confer. In May 2026 journalist Sophia Smith Galer joined us live to explore how this mass extinction event is one of the most urgent cultural emergencies we’re facing today. Drawing on her globe-spanning investigation, How to Kill a Language, Smith Galer shed light on linguicide, its root causes, and what we lose when a language dies. From Ghana to Greece, Ukraine to Ecuador, her research ultimately led her back home: to Italy, where piaśintein, the Gallo-Italian language of her grandparents, is on the brink of vanishing forever. Smith Galer also discussed the communities bringing their languages back, from Kurdish activists in Iran to Karuk campaigners in the forests of California Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:50.4	combe.com to learn more. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
0:56.2	I'm producer Mia Serenti.
0:58.7	Roughly 7,000 languages are spoken around the world today.
1:02.9	Over half of them are expected to vanish in the next century.
1:06.5	So what do we lose when a language dies?
1:09.2	Today's episode is part one of our recent live event with journalist Sophia Smith Gala.
1:14.1	Smith Gaelig joined Maria Mushery, chief presenter at BBC News, to discuss the global crisis of linguicide.
1:21.2	Live at the Kielm Theatre in London, Smith Gailer drew on her new book How to Kill a Language
1:26.6	to explore what happens when languages vanish,
1:29.3	and with them histories, identities and ways of understanding the world.
1:34.0	From Italy to Iran, Ghana to California, she examines both the forces driving linguistic extinction
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