Stirling academic visits three major book festivals as interest soars in rare languages book

A University of Stirling author and linguistics expert will speak at three major UK book festivals this autumn, as interest soars in her book on unusual languages.

Dr Lorna Gibb, Associate Professor in Creative Writing, will be a guest speaker at Wigtown Book Festival, Ilkley Literature Festival and the Henley Literary Festival, all taking place this September and October.

Dr Gibb will talk about her book Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages, which tells the stories of the world’s rare and vanishing languages.

Worldwide interest

Since its publication in March, Rare Tongues has generated worldwide interest and glowing reviews, and led to high-profile media appearances for Dr Gibb, including several interviews and coverage in The Wall Street Journal. The UK publisher Atlantic Books has just sold rights for the book in China and Japan. Dr Gibb has also taken part in several events for the USA, with others scheduled for later this year - all organised by Princeton University Press, publishers of the US edition.

The book, Dr Gibb’s seventh, marks the first time she has written about linguistics, which was the subject of her PhD thesis. As well as teaching creative writing at Stirling, Dr Gibb, a former theoretical phonologist, also teaches linguistics.

Window into a way of life

Dr Gibb, of the University of Stirling’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, said: “I am delighted that Rare Tongues has had such a positive reaction worldwide. With so many languages facing extinction or being homogenised, it felt important to me to shine a light on the importance of linguistic diversity to global cultures and identities. 

“Language is a window into a way of life, and when a language dies, a piece of society dies with it. This book is not only a linguistic journey around the world, from Namibia to Scotland, it is also a lesson on how language systems work, and what language teaches us about the history of humankind.”

More details on Rare Tongues here: Rare Tongues – Atlantic Books