Ross Perlin
New Arizona Fellow, 2023
Ross Perlin, New Arizona Fellow, is a linguist, translator, and writer from New York City, currently serving as co-director of the non-profit Endangered Language Alliance and teaching linguistics at Columbia University. He is the author of Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, which jumpstarted an international conversation about unpaid work and youth economics. He is currently writing a book that explores New York City as a last improbable refuge for endangered languages in an age of linguistic loss, centered on six speakers from around the world and their communities.
Selected Work
- The Race to Save a Dying Language: A story for the Guardian about Hawaii Sign Language, newly discovered by linguists but already threatened.
- Talk of the Town: A piece about the movement to revive Indigenous languages, especially in cities, published in Artforum magazine.
- Cyborg Tongues: An essay in Logic magazine about how technology can both help and harm smaller languages.
- Radical Linguistics in an Age of Extinction: An essay for Dissent magazine about the idea of linguistic equality and how language loss deprives us of irreplaceable sources of radical possibility.
Programs/Projects/Initiatives
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