About 2,000 uncommon languages ​​can disappear from Earth within 100 years!

Every two weeks, a language disappears on planet Earth. This information was published by David Harrison, a linguist and director of the American Institute of Linguistics.

Currently there are about 7,000 languages ​​that exist on Earth. 80% of people living in the world use 83 popular languages ​​and only 0.2% communicate with 3,500 less common languages.

The language lost is even faster than the animals listed in the red book. There are about 5 language areas on the planet that suffer from such disasters: Northern Australia (153 languages), Central America and South America (113), including Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia, the Plateau North Pacific (54), including British Columbia state of Canada, Washington state and Oregon of the United States, Oklahoma state, Texas and New Mexico, Russia, Eastern Siberia territories of Russia, China and Japan (23) . In summary, 383 languages ​​are facing the risk of disappearing forever.

A lost language means the collapse of an entire culture(Photo: Flan.csusb.edu)

Sometimes it's simple, a language can disappear as soon as the last person to use it dies. For example, there is only one Siletz Dee-ni speaker - the last of the 27 languages ​​spoken by the Indian tribe of Siletz - an area reserved for Indians. . In fact, this language is no longer available. Often the youngest people who speak less common languages ​​are more than 60 years old. For example, only 5 older people speak Yuchi language in Oklahoma state.

Most uncommon languages ​​disappear because they cannot compete with other languages. In North America and South America, Aboriginal dialects (local languages) have been replaced by European languages ​​such as Spanish, English and French. In Australia, fierce conflicts between Aboriginal tribes and white people have caused instability in many languages.

A similar case occurred in the Siberia region of the former Soviet Union, when the government contributed to the " extinction " of a large number of local languages, causing local residents to use languages ​​in many different areas of Siberia.

About half of all languages ​​in the world have not yet written. When the last person speaks a language that dies, the language is lost.The disappearance of a language means that everything also disappears, it is a nation that has its own sovereignty, history, biology, mathematics, etc.

Professor Sergei Arutyunov, head of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, considers this process the natural aging of the language. He said: 'This is a matter of natural aging of language. On the other hand, if 20 languages ​​are lost every year, it means that more than 2,000 languages ​​will disappear in about 100 years. It could be a cultural tragedy for human civilization. In Russia, for example, a language disappears every year. About 20 languages ​​were lost in the Soviet Union during its last 20 years of existence. I know at least 2 of those languages. '

Arutyumov did not find any connection between the abundance of language and globalization. Indeed globalization and language are a completely different story.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta