The Polar Tombola: A Book of Banished Words

The Polar Tombola explores the issue of endangered languages from the perspective of a poet and book artist. What happens to an individual’s experience of the world when their language begins to disappear? How will future scientists study the Arctic ecosystem without access to specialist vocabularies? What role has the printed word played in the evolution of dialects? How might we visualise language loss? At events around the UK, from London’s Southbank Centre to the Polar Museum in Cambridge, from Liverpool’s World Museum to BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, The Polar Tombola challenged people with the question: ‘If you had to lose a word from your language, what would it be?’ Contributions came in from librarians, scientists, artists, writers, journalists, publishers, curators and medical professionals. This book collects together for the first time over 100 words from many languages including Latin, Farsi, Korean and Icelandic. A Book of Banished Words also includes seven new texts on the theme of language loss commissioned from contemporary poets and writers Vahni Capildeo, Will Eaves, Pippa Hennessy, Nasim Marie Jafry, Lisa Matthews, Phil Owen and Richard Price.