Ling 001: Linguistic Typology

Endangered Languages

• Many of the 6,000-odd "living" languages cited in Ethnologue are endangered or nearly extinct.
• Roughly half of the world's languages are moribund, in the sense that new generations of children are not being raised to speak them.
• Within a century, it is likely that the number of living languages will be cut at least in half, and may well be fewer than 1,000.
• Thus the current rate of extinction for languages is much greater than the rate of extinction for biological species. Most people believe that this loss of linguistic/cultural diversity is a bad thing.
• For languages that can't be saved, it is still possible to document them for scientific purposes and for the sake of future generations who might want to study or even revive them.