YouSaid · the spoken record

Sophia Smith Galer

lines on the record: 27
first: 2026-05-26
most recent: 2026-05-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Not only in linguistics, in London schools, I am mapping London's languages at the moment, in London schools there is not one Arabic. Recorded differently. It's not every single I can remember Sudan is one Certain countries are identif You know, sort of generally des Number of languages in the data set are like that, including Started Intimately Learner Would argue that trying to Commentary that I've seen. Interestingly. If we”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It happens a lot that languages are described as dialects with a means to sort of devalue them and not include them in areas of public life. Or more often than not, it's actually about not giving their speakers power or not giving the identity of those speakers a different power to the rest of the group, especially in these world views, one language, one nation, nationalist worldviews.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What do you think? Do you think culturally we live in a country where people's multilingualism is valued the way it should be? I don't think so. And I argue, I mean, we've just gone through a political cycle. You know that the Conservatives try to ban foreign languages in election campaigning very recently. The Labour government shot it down at committee stage. But that nearly, that got tabled and could have gone through in a more divisive political time. So we do live in quite a hostile environment for languages. We have politicians who go on air and are happy to say that when I'm on a train and I hear people speaking, you know, I'm on a train for several stations, I can't speak English, that politician, you know who I'm thinking of, I don't want to say his name. He's not there thinking this could be a mother and daughter keeping their mother tongue alive.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not a psychologist, and I can't answer that. I can tell you that it is commonly described as misinformation by linguists when they hear about children being told, only speak one language. That's not the advice that children broadly should be given. They should be encouraged to maintain whatever languages are important to them and their families. But, I mean, certainly here.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they hire local English speakers who will have French. So for the Algiers, it's enough. But it really kind of creates a big animosity within the community. I have so many friends that work in Brussels but refuse to live in Brussels because there's just no representation of the Flemish community. Although in the institutions there should be Flemish, French and also German. So I'm just wondering you're describing language planning, top-down language planning that is not being Speakers living in that country do not feel as representing them. And that's the beginning of numerous problems down the line. Lady Next, you had a question as well.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, the intention was there in theory, it was a great idea. In practice, if not enough resources are actually given towards bilingual education. No surprise, it may not work. So it's not about the idea not working. It's about the resources granted to it. So I can't say that I had that book, but it's a very, obviously it's an absolutely fascinating concept. I mean, just to give you an example, so I'm a native Flemish and Italian speaker. My parents are from each side, but I've learned French, German, English at school. But when I go to the embassy here in Belgium, nobody is able to help me in Flemish. And it's just, I mean, I just don't know how to explain it. It's ridiculous. I mean, we're six million speakers of Flemish. We're four million speakers of French in Belgium. Do they need on their CVs to get a job there? Do they need on their CVs to say that they speak Flemish? I don't think so.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If he had any thoughts on that or any research that sort of you've read on that specifically, a context like that from memory didn't appear in the book. The only thing I can think of that came up was bilingual education. So if you just sort of skim read language planning in Ecuador, you'd be incredibly impressed with it. And in many ways, we should be about what's been achieved there. But when you look at the quality of bilingual education and how”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mark about the way that the person is speaking. And depending on the context, I now call that behavior out. So I've not only become shameless in my own ability to make mistakes, I will not become better at the languages I speak if I don't make errors. In fact, the rules for my Italian language bar are padlare in Italiano, speak Italian, spaliare, make mistakes, eber, drink. Those are the three rules and I think they are applicable beyond the Italian language bar, so be shameless. If you needed someone to give you permission to be shameless, here I am.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You scared you're going to make it a mistake. Do you think you're going to make a mistake? If your answer is, of course I'm going to make a mistake. How do you think I'm going to learn? Oh, all right You just drop that shame, you realize actually what good or use does that shame have? Nothing. It doesn't do anything. So I think you almost need to build up this sense of linguistic self-esteem. And I get really annoyed. My Italian has definitely been improving. I can hear, especially when I record myself speaking Italian. No, I might hear myself say certain things and think, oh, Sophia, you know, your accent was re-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-L-Glish there or your accent was re-Spanish there, which sometimes happens. Sometimes I hear these things and I remain very self-critical, but I hate it when I am with someone and someone else makes a comment to them. And I think it is only intended as linguistic shaming. And often the speaker doesn't even realize that this is what they're doing, but they're making a...”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, absolutely. I say a lot shame is one of the biggest language killers. And the reason it's so harmful is because you don't always need another person to give it to you. We're very good at making ourselves feel ashamed with very little external effort. Interestingly, in the chapter that I have on shame, a Peruvian linguist called it asphyxia linguistica, linguistic asphyxiation. And I think any of us... Who's been put in that position can suddenly feel that very viscerally with that kind of term And I am of the opinion, and I think writing this book has emboldened this opinion for me. The best language learners in the world are not good at languages, they're shameless. So anyone here who has learned any kind of language”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“National origin, they'd have to find a different means with which to define your discrimination. In France, newly they actually have a law, glottophobi, glottophobia. We do not have this law in the UK. In France, they have it. In other places, increasingly no main. So if you don't even have international human rights monitors looking at these kinds of things, UNESCO really are the only sort of international place that looks at this kind of stuff. And that's why apps like the one that you've just heard about this evening are often going to be reliant on crowdfunding efforts and grassroots efforts. I don't think you're mad. I think that it's going to be really challenging and will you have enough resources and speakers to give you the information that you need? But I certainly think every, wouldn't it be lovely every time someone comes to you with a language that they need, that there is the infrastructure to try and offer something?”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, thank you for your question. It's interesting the point about Is there like an international organization that would rally around it? In almost every arena, there isn't an international body. So in the chapter where I look at Ukrainian, the Kurdish chapter as well, but with Ukrainian, you've got the state language commissioner there who is gathering all of the examples of linguicide because they hope to use and reference these examples when it comes to genocide, the charge over genocide. There is no, it sounds like linguicide is a crime. There is no international crime of linguicide. Linguistic human rights get wrapped up in loads of different areas. And even when it comes to think about our own human rights protection here in the UK, your language is not a protected characteristic. You would sort of have to, if you feared someone was sort of persecuting you in the basis of your language, you'd have to try and get it, a lawyer would tell you better than me, but I think they'd have to try and get it under your”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it's important work. Does anyone here use MemRise has used Memrise? Yeah, so memrise, just as an example, loads of speakers of endangered languages had been using memrise, and then they changed something about the sort of infrastructure of their website, which suddenly meant that they shut down every single, they shut down one of their products. And with it, all of these resources that speakers had been assembling for ages suddenly lost them. And the outcry was apparent before they did it. And that company did have a decision. They could have paused it. They didn't.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would want to do all the languages in the UK. I think that would be really cool. Know it's hard. There are loads, but I almost can't imagine anyone sort of giving me that option. But if they did, I'd kind of just, I'd be like a kid in a toy shop, sort of not really knowing where to go. But yes, I didn't go to Spain and Spain obviously has very, very interesting history and very good interesting Spain still has some languages that are very heavily threatened and have not had recognition that languages like Catalan and Bascav. So it's not a perfect picture, but it's certainly more successful picture than its neighbours. And I would really like to sort of analyze why. That would be cool. Yes, don't tempt me with a good time. Any more questions? Gentlemen at the front.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If there aren't the very keen volunteers, I think that's obviously, I struggle to understand where it would come from otherwise, because I think even if the Irish government suddenly started something, funding something, there needs to be interest, you know, there needs to be both supply and demand. But I'd be curious about whether there is any support that could come from Ireland or even the EU, given it's an EU language. Any more questions?”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was started in the 60s. And by that club will not exist anymore if there aren't volunteers willing to basically run events and keep it alive. So I wanted to do the language bar both to revive my Italian, help other heritage speakers in my position, but then like new Italian migrants who would just want to keep speaking their language and meeting other Italians graduates or students. And I'm not paid to do that. I do it because I love doing it. It's important for me to do it. So it's back to that grassroots thing that I mentioned, that a lot of this work is basically just being done by very keen volunteers.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's no planning here for Guelga, but like we're the most diaspora, I think we're the biggest diaspora of all countries ever maybe, but I might be wrong. Huge amount of Irish people don't live in Ireland. So I wonder if you found a place where people have managed to do that outside of the country, which is the language's place. So Let me give you a bit of insight into what I have been a part of. So every month I run an Italian language bar where people, you might have seen a video I made about it recently, but I lure people in with three pound wine. Where can you get a glass of three pound wine in London? But this bar is hosted by a community centre where I recorded our podcast”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Literally 20 minutes after that experience finished, even within my own country, I could no longer go into a shop order in Irish, say, please thank you, sorry if I bumped into someone. And then I obviously got all the way back here where I live. And I feel like, as you say, those are the kinds of things that really, really make it alive for you. And I feel like there are languages in London where like if I spoke Arabic, there are restaurants where I could just be in Arabic speaker. There are shops where I could be an Arabic speaker. But with I just don't see that. And we have organized events, but we don't have like...”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm going very quickly. I wanted to ask you about through the research that you've done. There's a gap for me living in London and I wondered if you found places that are filling this gap. So that's my question. But I'll explain it better. So I've just come back from a Gale talk area where I was able to go into a shop. Can you explain what Gail tact is to people who may not know it in the audience? It's a slightly unusual term because we call like several different areas the Gail talked, but it just means any part of Ireland where Irish is the first language children are being raised in it. It's basically as far from England as possible where the colonization didn't quite reach the corners of the country. But we call it all the Gale Tocht. So I've just come back from a Gael Tacht.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Loads of kind of quite random British personalities. So there's quite a lot of pushback against it there. Yeah, I got really mad about it here in the UK. confident a lot of them are not practicing Catholics, but they got mad about it because it was seen as an affront to an important cultural heritage. And I thought when I saw that, isn't that interesting these individuals who feel this connection to Latin, not even Latin in one very particular context, would they show up for this for the UK's living but threatened languages? No Just an interesting observation I made while writing this To give you the audience.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I would quite like to bring Latin back. Yeah, well, Latin is here, you know? We're going to speak Latin. What accent would you use? Italian. That school never did that, it was never kind of, you sort of read it to understand it and you do literary translations, but you wouldn't have to read it. But the really interesting thing about Latin is... So Pope Francis changed there's a theologian in the audience there will tell me I'm wrong but he did something like he changed the Tridentine masses got a name like that or something and he The outcome is that he tried to make it so that you would hear more of your local language in mass than Latin. Jenny got really mad about that. Rory Stewart?”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are many, many examples. Hebrew is an incredibly famous example. Hebrew is now the sole language of the nation state of Israel. That status changed in 2019 where Arabic still held the same status. It has had its status diminished for political reasons, not because people aren't speaking Arabic there. An in mandatory Palestine English was also an official language alongside those two languages. But a couple of hundred years ago, there actually wasn't a speaker of Hebrew. It was not a vernacular spoken language. It had been, it fallen out of daily use and it had become sacrileized, used primarily in religious context. A bit like Latin. A bit like, yeah, a bit back. Is that going to come back? Wants to bring Latin”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what happens is the same thing has happened with Welsh. The biggest group of Welsh speakers right now are children. And this is the sign of not only a lively language, but a language in resurgence. Because what's happened now is there are some missed generations that's happened with Maori, it's happened with Welsh. We now have examples where children are far better speakers of heritage languages than their parents. I don't know if I really hope that there are parent programs because I can imagine if I was a parent in that position, I would want to get involved.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know. You tell him, Mario. You tell him. BBC News is Mariam Mashuru. Maori. I mean, Maori, I wish I would have loved to go to New Zealand for this book. Please make them pay me to write book two. Because I would love to go. And witness all the fantastic work that has gone into the revival of Maori. That's a really cool thing that happened in Aotearoa, New Zealand, as it's so commonly called. Anyone here who now starts calling that country that is using a Maori word, Aotearo New Zealand. And they're very famous for their Kohanga Rayo, which are language nests. So they pioneered a kind of preschool. Imagine nursery, but you send your kid and the only teachers are all elders fluent in Maori.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You got any Welsh Come on, yeah. Yes, Welsh. In the UK we've got Welsh is one of our most commonly cited examples, even Cornish. Cornish was once deemed extinct, and now there are at least 500 people.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's that, and then also what was the Farsi language support around you growing up when you were antinatal classes? Were they telling you about, oh, by the way, anyone got any languages and families besides English? Some advice on how to keep it, you know, it actually needs a village. It does need a village. It needs a community. It was never all on you. But if you felt it was all on you, that's probably why the languages didn't keep going.”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But also It was not entirely on you. You have a partner, and even though there was English, but regardless, the partner is not absolved of linguistic responsibility. So this is, as with most studies in the world, they've been done on heterosexual relationships. But it's believed that mothers have twice the influence on the sort of language planning of their child compared to the father. Now, do we think that's because women have this secret inherent superpower? Or do we think it's because of gender roles?”
2026-05-26 · Intelligence Squared · How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT