According to the NYTimes today, while you were off saving mountain gorillas and Northern Spotted Owls, thousands of the world's languages are going the way of the dodo.
New research, reported today, has identified the five regions of the world where languages are disappearing most rapidly. The 'hot spots' of imminent language extinctions are: Northern Australia, Central South America, North America’s upper Pacific coastal zone, Eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and Southwest United States. All of the areas are occupied by aboriginal people speaking diverse languages, but in decreasing numbers.
And by "decreasing numbers", they mean that some languages are spoken by as little as one person. One! And when those small populations go - or their minds go - another language falls into disuse and, many times - without a written record or an oral recording - into oblivion, at the rate of about one every two weeks. That statistic seems almost too incredible, considering I could name maybe twenty languages; my list would include, simply, the most widely spoken and influential languages spoken today, but apparently there are an estimated 7000 in total. How many can you name; you might want to save your answer for your next party?
Read more about the situation and the conservation efforts here:
World’s Languages Dying Off Rapidly
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, Published: September 18, 2007
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/world/18cnd-language.html)
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In semi-related news, the NYTimes online will be reducing the scope of its content under the TimesSelect purview starting tomorrow! In other words, most of the articles on the NYTimes.com will go back to being free!
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