The diversity of the world's almost 7000 languages is under greater threat today than ever before. Half of them could have fallen silent for good by the end of the 21st century. And with every language that is abandoned by a community, it is not only unique sound systems and grammatical peculiarities that fall into oblivion. Treasures of rich knowledge and part of our cultural diversity are also lost. In the "Atlas of Languages Threatened with Extinction", linguist Dr. Stefan Schnell, together with Zeit editor Arnfried Schenk, presents 50 endangered languages from all over the world: from Lower Sorbian and Basque in Europe, to Comanche in North America, Kayardild in Australia and Mbugu in Africa. As part of the book premiere, the two will talk about their work on the book and present linguistic features of different languages in more detail, such as the South African language East Taa, which has more than thirty words for smells, or Artschinian, which is spoken in the north-eastern Caucasus and can form around 1.5 million forms of a single verb. An evening like a short trip around the world of languages.

An event organized by DuMont Buchverlag.

The proceeds from the event will be donated to the "Gesellschaft für bedrohte Sprachen e.V.".