Ross Perlin

Ross Perlin 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 the author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, 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.

This bio reflects the fellow’s work and affiliations as of the completion of their fellowship project.

• 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.