Irwin Sanchez, a chef and poet in Queens who speaks Nahuatl, once the language of the Aztec, makes tacos, moles, and tamales with the words’ original meanings in mind. Husniya Khujamyorova, a speaker of Wakhi from Tajikistan, creates some of the very first children’s books for speakers of six Pamiri languages—all now represented along Brooklyn’s own Silk Road. Ibrahima Traore, who made it from Guinea to the Lower East Side, teaches N’ko, a pioneering West African writing system, and pushes for its use in every new technology. Boris Sandler, a Yiddish-speaking writer born in Moldova, contributes in his own way, novel after novel, to the miraculous rebirth of Yiddish in New York.
Lenape, the original language of the land the city is built on, is also being revived against all…