蜜芽传媒

Half of all languages may disappear over the next century, and many of them have never been recorded. Linguist Ross Perlin is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history - contemporary New York.

These programmes present a portrait of five remarkable speakers of little-known languages. Ross dives deep into their communities to discover how they are maintaining their language, and culture, against the odds.

In this third episode, he spends time with Boris Sandler - writer, editor and film-maker, whose language is Yiddish. Boris grew up in Soviet Moldova and made a living as a professional violinist before coming to New York in 1991. The place where he first touched down in the city was a little street in the Bronx, Bainbridge Avenue.

鈥淗ere in the 1960s, while Jews and so many white New Yorkers were leaving the city in droves, three families decided to buy houses next to each other and raise their children together in Yiddish. They respected Jewish religious practice, but they were distinctly secular. They created a Yiddish world of their own.鈥�

Although Yiddish was once a disappearing language, it is now growing fast, thanks to the Hassidic communities who regrouped in New York after the Holocaust. Half of New York speakers are now under the age of 18, and it has gone from one of the city鈥檚 oldest languages, demographically speaking, to one of the youngest. With Boris Sandler, Ross Perlin explores the dilemmas raised by the recent explosion of Yiddish.

We hear Boris talking, and an archive recording of a haunting Yiddish lullaby.

Ross Perlin is a linguist who teaches at Columbia University in New York and co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance.

Reader: Adam Sims
Produced and abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Studio Production and sound Design by Jon Calver
Executive Producer: Jo Rowntree

A Loftus Media production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4

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