Listening to (and Saving) the World’s Languages

Immigrants in New York City have made it a place of remarkable linguistic diversity. There are an estimated 800 languages spoken, meaning that globalization has allowed languages born in every corner of the world to gather in New York City. As globalization places a priority on a handful of major languages in the world for business purposes, other languages have become rare and are dying out. But globalization has benefits: researchers interested in preserving these dying languages have easier access to native speakers drawn to a major world metropolis like New York. Linguists conduct field research on languages spoken in remote parts of the world simply by taking the subway to Queens. While the rise of English as a global language per se has affected languages around the world, migration promoted by globalization is helping the effort to keep them alive. – YaleGlobal