London’s endangered language communities to be mapped in new project

London may be second only to New York in the number of at-risk languages spoken

Life in London has been mapped according to its health, wealth, land ownership, politics and transport at key points in its long history. But it is now to be charted in a way that tells a different story: the story of language itself.

Ross Perlin, an academic who claimed a prestigious £25,000 book prize last week, has revealed plans for a mapping project with British researchers that would reveal the whereabouts of the speakers of the capital’s most at-risk languages. The map, they believe, would be a first step to saving them.

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