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The British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding this year went to a book that shows how endangered languages are being saved in the contemporary world.

In 2013, the British Academy established the annual Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, and American author Ross Perlin won the £25,000 (€30,100) prize for his nonfiction book “Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues.”

The history of migration into New York is chronicled in “Language City,” which shows how the languages of many cultures overtook the native Lenape speakers. He then uses six case studies of endangered language speakers in New York to follow that history through to the present.

Perlin looks at how endangered languages are able to persist because of the tenacity of their cultural communities, how their distinct grammar and syntaxes function, and what we may discover about other civilisations by studying these languages.

“New York City is home to more than 700 languages – ‘the most linguistically diverse city in the history of the world’ – and by examining them Perlin opens out new ways of thinking about the exuberant variety of these aspects of the urban soundscape, which we might otherwise take for granted or ignore,” Professor Charles Tripp FBA, one of the judges commented.

“Perlin’s research is dynamic and immediate; it is about what is happening now, right in front of us, as we witness the flux of everyday life. It was a real pleasure for the judges to read, even if our reading was tinged with concern for the subjects of these entrancing narratives,” Tripp added.

The British Academy’s President, Professor Julia Black, offered her thoughts on the current state of the academy’s book award, praising “exceptional research” and non-fiction books that offer fresh insights into world culture. “Language City is a striking reminder of the human connection that languages facilitate and a masterfully written social history,” she remarked.

“We know from our own work at the Academy that the take-up of language study is in decline and there is an urgent need to reverse this trend. This book perfectly captures what’s at stake if we don’t act now to preserve and enhance languages and the study of them. We believe that a linguistically diverse society benefits everyone and this book demonstrates that perfectly.”

Perlin, a linguist, author, and translator from New York City, refers to the Lenape people, whose territory stretched from Connecticut to Delaware, as “Lenapehoking” on his website.

His book, “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy,” explores young economics and unpaid labour. As co-director of the nonprofit Endangered Language Alliance since 2013, Perlin is in charge of research initiatives pertaining to language mapping, documentation, policy, and public programming.

The top prize of £25,000 (€30,100) goes to Perlin, the 12th recipient of the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. The £1,000 (€1,200) award is also given to the five other selected candidates.

Five other books were shortlisted from 263 submissions: Ed Conway’s “Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future,” Amitav Ghosh’s “Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories,” Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell’s “The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Global History of Mathematics & Its Unsung Trailblazers,” Marcy Norton’s “The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals” after 1492, and Annabel Sowemimo’s “Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare.”

The winner from the previous year was Nandini Das, whose book “Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire” recounted the history of Britain and India through the early 17th-century arrival of Sir Thomas Roe, the first English ambassador to India.