Last Night in Montreal

by Emily St. John Mandel

A language disappears, on average, every ten days. Last speakers die, words slip into memory, linguists struggle to preserve the remains. What every language comes down to, at the end, is one last speaker. One speaker of a language once shared by thousands or millions, marooned in a sea of Spanish or Mandarin or English. Perhaps loved by many but still profoundly alone; reluctantly fluent in the language of her grandchildren, but unable to tell anyone her dreams. How much loss can be carried in a single human frame? Their last words hold entire civilizations.