On Friday, April 10, members of the Union community may have woken to find a survey request in their inboxes. This survey is a part of a broader attempt by Modern Language professors Megan Ferry, Michele Ricci Bell, and Kristin Bidoshi to map the languages spoken on Union’s campus. The project, inspired by the Endangered Languages Alliance’s (ELA) map of languages spoken in New York City, is one part of a three-pronged grant from the Modern Languages Association (MLA) to assess career opportunities in language study.

When asked about the map, Megan Ferry, Professor of Chinese, said, “Its succinct representation of the roughly 700 languages spoken in NYC, not to mention the fact that some of the speakers are the last ones on this planet, reminds us that multilingualism is the norm, not the exception. I wondered what such a map could look like here at Union. I reached out to the Endangered Languages Alliance who did the NYC map, and some other colleagues at other colleges, and found out that we are the first campus to create a map.”

The survey has been available to the Union community for two weeks and continues to accept responses. Access to the survey can be found inside Union email inboxes or through QR codes on posters posted throughout campus. Responses from all linguistic backgrounds are accepted, including from those who are monolingual, multilingual, or have even studied a language on Duolingo. When asked about the response from the community so far, Professor Ferry said, “Thus far, we are seeing over 70 languages represented, whether it’s a heritage language, school-learned language, signed, or just a peep through the door via a two-week binge on Duolingo. Through this map, we hope to show how languages unite us, which is counterintuitive to the myth that languages divide us.” Professors Ferry, Bidoshi, and Ricci Bell also emphasized that the survey is anonymous, voluntary, and will continue to protect participants’ privacy once the data can be displayed.