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 first episode, he meets Rasmina, a nurse who is one of the youngest people in the world who can speak Seke - a language from five villages in highland Nepal, near Tibet. It has 700 speakers, and over 100 of them have moved to a single building in Brooklyn. Rasmina takes Ross on a guided tour of the apartment block where all her relatives live. They then travel together back to her grandmother鈥檚 village in Nepal, to record the fast-disappearing Seke language.

鈥淥ne afternoon, Rasmina鈥檚 82 year-old grandmother receives us in her orchard, in her rock-star shades and resplendent traditional robe. She stays here now even if, or perhaps because, everyone else is leaving. She waits for their return visits, and she weeps every time people leave鈥︹��

In the programme, we hear Rasmina herself, as well as Ross Perlin鈥檚 own field recordings of Seke from Nepal.

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.

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