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One language dies every two weeks. How can poetry help? – books podcast

On this week’s show, we look at endangered languages around the world and how poets and publishers are fighting to keep them alive. Sian sits down with Chris McCabe from the National Poetry Library, which has been asking the public to contribute to a database of endangered languages since 2017. The resulting anthology, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, features poems in languages from Assyrian to Zoque. Two poets in the collection – Valzhyna Mort, who writes in Belarusian, and Vaughan Rapatahana, who writes in Te Reo – talk about their efforts to spread awareness of their languages.

And Clive Boutle, who runs independent publisher Francis Boutle, comes into the studio to talk about his mission to preserve minority languages by publishing poetry in Livonian, Kernewek, Scottish Gaelic, Catalan, Frisian and many more.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/36bdKiK

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