Newsletter

Receive regular updates about forthcoming events and other news from Intelligence Squared

Thanks

You have been added to our mailing list and will now be among the first to hear about events.

Live On Stage
Monday May 11 2026, 7pm BST

How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer

This event is part of Conversations at the Kiln, an event series at Kiln Theatre programmed by Intelligence Squared. To see the full line-up click here.

What do we lose when a language dies?

Roughly 7,000 languages are spoken around the world today. Over half of them are expected to vanish in the next century – along with the wealth of information they contain, the family ties they represent, and the psychological benefits they confer. 

On May 11, journalist Sophia Smith Galer joins us live to explore how this mass extinction event is one of the most urgent cultural emergencies we’re facing today.

Drawing on her globe-spanning investigation, How to Kill a Language, Smith Galer will shed light on linguicide, its root causes, and what we lose when a language dies. From Ghana to Greece, Ukraine to Ecuador, her research ultimately led her back home: to Italy, where piaśintein, the Gallo-Italian language of her grandparents, is on the brink of vanishing forever.

Smith Galer will also discuss the communities bringing their languages back, from Kurdish activists in Iran to Karuk campaigners in the forests of California.

Join us live at the Kiln Theatre, and have your questions answered in the audience Q&A.

 

If you require access seats, please choose ‘concession’ and email us at info@intelligencesquared.com with your access needs so we can seat you accordingly

How to Kill a Langauge
by Sophia Smith Galer

BUY ON:
Waterstones
Event Name

How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer

ATTEND IN-PERSON

Speaker

  • Sophia Smith Galer

    Award-winning Journalist, Writer, and Host of Critical Conversations

Host

  • Maryam Moshiri

    Chief Presenter at BBC News

Location
  • Kiln Theatre
  • 269 Kilburn High Rd
  • London
  • NW6 7JR
Time
  • Monday 11 May 2026
  • 7pm to 6:30pm BST

Speakers

Speaker

Sophia Smith Galer

Award-winning Journalist, Writer, and Host of Critical Conversations

Award-winning journalist, writer, speaker, and content creator, credited for pioneering astute, engaging journalism on TikTok. She began her career reporting across the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World News and building Webby-winning BBC social media channels before joining VICE News as a senior reporter until February 2024.  She produces and presents content on a range of topics including linguicide, innovation and disruption, health and technology, generational communication, gender equality, how to navigate mis-and-dis information, and the state of influencer culture and its ethics. She was the first journalist to report the misuse of political ads on TikTok during the 2020 US election, which was broadcast in her first television documentary The TikTok Election. She was awarded a British Journalism award for 'Innovation of the Year' in 2021, and in 2023 she became a Visiting Fellow for Brown University’s Information Futures Lab where she has developed resources for combating misinformation and misogyny in British schools. In 2024, she was named the winner of the Georgina Henry Award at the Women In Journalism awards for Digital Innovation. As part of the International Center for Journalists’ Disarming Disinformation Solutions Challenge, she developed Sophina, her AI tool that helps experts and journalists write video scripts and amplify their work online.
Host

Maryam Moshiri

Chief Presenter at BBC News

Chief presenter at BBC News. Her show The World Today launched on the BBC News channel in January 2024, broadcasting to more than 100 million viewers globally. Maryam also presents the national bulletins on BBC 1 at weekends. She began her BBC career as a business news presenter, covering major business stories from the economic impact of the 9/11 attacks to the global financial crisis. She has interviewed some of the world’s top economists, investors and CEOs, including Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings, and Willie Walsh, and was the face of business on the BBC News channel and BBC World News for 16 years. During this time she has covered events such as the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Speakers are subject to change.