TROUBLE

As Sophia Smith Galer’s Nonna lay dying, she realised it wasn’t just a beloved grandmother she was losing, it was the language she spoke, too. From Northern Italy, she spoke a dialët that Sophia, like so many children and grandchildren of migrants, can understand but can’t speak. With the death of the language, Sophia would lose a culture, a history, an inheritance, a whole world.

This tragedy reaches far beyond her family. Globally we are witnessing an unprecedented mass extinction event. By the end of this century half of the world’s 7000 languages will be gone, killed by war, climate breakdown, migration, nationalism or neglect, along with the vital knowledge that they have sustained for centuries.

Award-winning journalist Sophia Smith Galer has journeyed across continents and generations to report from this disappearing world and she'll join us to share the scale of the tragedy and the beauty of languages that may soon disappear forever.