Taking readers on a captivating journey of discovery, Lorna Gibb explores the histories of languages under threat or already extinct as well as those in resurgence, shedding light on their origins, development, and distinctive voices. She travels the globe—from Australia and Finland to India, the Canary Islands, Namibia, Scotland, and Paraguay—showing how these languages are not mere words and syntax but keepers of diverse worldviews, sites of ethnic conflict, and a means for finding surprising commonalities. Readers learn the basics of how various language systems work—with vowels and consonants, whistles and clicks, tonal inflections, or hand signs—and how this kaleidoscope of self-expression carries vital information about our planet, indigenous cultures and tradition, and the history and evolution of humankind.

Lorna Gibb was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire and has a PhD from Edinburgh University in theoretical phonology. She is
Associate Professor of Linguistics and Creative writing at Stirling University.

She is the author of biographies of Lady Hester Stanhope and Dame Rebecca West, a novel and a part memoir, part global exploration of childlessness.  In 2013, she won the Granta memoir prize and in 2014 was shortlisted for the Sperber prize for biography in the US. She has written for a wide variety of publications including The TLS, The Times, The Herald, Granta Magazine and The Telegraph.