Launch of the UCL Press Series ‘Textbook of World and Minority Languages’

The series ‘Textbook of World and Minority Languages’, edited by the SSEES Associate Professor Dr Riitta Valijärvi and Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Languages Lily Kahn was launched with the publication of ‘Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic’, written by Assaf Bar-Moshe (UCL Press, 2024).

 This series consists of contemporary and accessible beginners’ language textbooks of the world’s less commonly taught languages with an emphasis on Indigenous, regional, minority, and endangered languages, as well as ancient languages. The focus is on languages which presently lack easy-to-use English-medium textbooks. The textbooks equip both classroom and independent learners with the knowledge of the language’s basic grammatical structures, high frequency vocabulary, and salient cultural topics. For modern spoken languages emphasis is placed on everyday communicative situations, while for ancient languages the focus is on reading texts.