Project Aims to Catalogue Endangered Languages

While there are nearly 7,000 languages, only 83 are used by a majority of the world's population. Researchers say many of the rest are in danger of disappearing, warning that perhaps half the world's native languages will no longer exist by the end of the century. David Harrison with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages says language extinction is a crisis of unprecedented proportions and he is trying to do something about it. VOA's Paul Sisco has more.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• language
• tongue
• extinction
• National
• Geographic
• enduring
• voices
• Living
• Tongues
• Institute
• sisco
• voa
• news

[repaeu]

THIS MAN HAS MY DREAM JOB. =(

[Badwolf182]

Fascinating. When a language disappears so does that culture and its traditions. The commonlity of the language binds other parts of the group - so music arts literature culture traditions etc

[corymate1]

ae e tika ana tenei tangata . kua ngaro nga reo taketake o te ao i te mea ka hakahihi nga tangata i a koe mena i a koe e korero tou reo

[Totorohat]

wik nayka tiki pus nayka lelong memulst!

[halligalli727]

English,German,Spanish,Mandari­n,Hundustani and possibly French cover most of the globe!

[papillonaquatique]

Spanish is spoken in Spain,South America,America and several other european countries.Then French is spoken in France,Africa and several european countries.There are many languages that crowed out the others.

[wutsthedealwithfood]

very insightful. you know, the only way for languages to survive is for those few speakers to build a wiki encyclopedia for them. i think pretty much everything but english and chinese ought to be considered endangered.

[wordsandverses]

Do you sometimes think about the cultures and traditions that went extinct before these restorative endeavors have taken place? It's a scary thought sometimes. Here we are, spending a plethora of money on explorations of outer space and the search for life elsewhere and we haven't even found out everything there is to know about ourselves yet.