It is often said that eighteen languages were spoken in New Amsterdam. In researching his forthcoming linguistic history of greater New York, Ross Perlin, former Robert D.L. Gardiner fellow at CUNY’s Gotham Center, discovered there may have been many more. He suggests a higher count that includes formerly overlooked languages spoken by the Indigenous population and the free and enslaved people brought here from Asia and Africa. He explores how the new port, New Amsterdam, was Native American, African, and European from the beginning, with the template for the city’s extraordinary multilingualism thus set at the very start of Dutch rule.

Join Ross Perlin, Co-Director of Endangered Language Alliance, for this conversation with Peter-Christian Aigner, Director of the Gotham Center for New York City History.

This is a joint event with The New Amsterdam History Center (NAHC). The program is offered free of charge. Your voluntary contribution will help support NAHC projects and programs such as this one (donations here).