[1] As part of his linguistics PhD, Perlin studied and published a dictionary for Trung, a language spoken in the eastern Himalayas.
[4] Perlin contributed to the English translation of Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre (2020) by Liao Yiwu[5] and Chen Guangcheng's The Barefoot Lawyer (2015).
[7] In this, he places a focus on trauma as the source for linguistic diversity in New York, especially that of immigrants fleeing persecution, violence, and famine.
[8] An excerpt from the book was published in The Atlantic, highlighting the likelihood that many endangered languages will die out in the near future.
[9] Some journalists have speculated that a New York Times article highlighting Perlin's work may have inspired an anti-immigrant comment by former President Donald Trump.