Michael Erard Hosts Language-Spotting Contest

By Maryann Yin 

Journalist Michael Erard has just published Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners. Now he’s testing readers’ language-spotting abilities with a video contest.

Erard assembled a group of friends who agreed to videotape themselves reading from his book. He collected these clips into the video embedded above–if you can list all the languages in the video, you could win a free book.

Here are more details about the contest: “Send an email message with 1) the name of each language and 2) in the order in which they appear to info@babelnomore.com, and I’ll put your name in a drawing for a signed copy of Babel No More.” A deadline has been set for February 23rd.

Erard is a contributing writer for Design Observer and a blogger for Psychology Today.