Since 1950, the number of unique languages spoken throughout our world has steadily declined. Today, the voices of more than 7,000 languages resound across our planet every moment, but about 2,900 or 41% are endangered. At current rates, about 90% of all languages will become extinct in the next 100 years.
Known Extinct Languages. Currently, there are 573 known extinct languages. These are languages that are no longer spoken or studied.
One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?
Language extinction
Linguistic predictions say that of 6,000 languages that are globally spoken today, around 600 of them after 100 years will have simplified versions or will not exist at all.
The number of Chinese speakers online is estimated at 888.4 million, which has risen an astounding 2600% over the same time period. The Chinese language is catching up quickly and is set to overtake English in the near future.
It's unlikely that we'll see a world that speaks one language any time soon. Protecting each individual countries' cultures is a huge barrier, but an important one to ensure our world is as beautifully diverse as it's always been.
According to the Engco Forecasting Model explained above, the 5 most spoken languages in 2050 will be Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi and Arabic. The key drivers behind the continued rise in popularity of these languages include population growth, economic predictions and national language policy.
Sumerian can be considered the first language in the world, according to Mondly. The oldest proof of written Sumerian was found on the Kish tablet in today's Iraq, dating back to approximately 3500 BC.
The archaeological proof we have today allows us to state that the oldest dead language in the world is the Sumerian language. Dating back to at least 3500 BC, the oldest proof of written Sumerian was found in today's Iraq on an artifact known as the Kish Tablet.
Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, mass migration, cultural replacement, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide (language killing).
There has only been one successful instance of a complete language revival, the Hebrew language, creating a new generation of native speakers without any pre-existing native speakers as a model. Languages targeted for language revitalization include those whose use and prominence is severely limited.
Every 40 days a language dies. This “catastrophic” loss is being amplified by the climate crisis, according to linguists. If nothing is done, conservative estimates suggest that half of all the 7,000 languages currently spoken will be extinct by the end of the century.
For example, Italian had the dubious distinction of being the fastest dying language in the United States in 2018, with the number of Americans speaking Italian within the home falling from 900,000 to 550,000 between 2001 and 2017.
When it comes to natural language, speaking the same language would reduce our creative scope and innovativeness, and it would press us all into the same mould. Knowing different languages allows us to give expression to different cultural identities and it keeps us in touch with our heritage.
As David Graddol notes in “The Future of English?”, there is no reason to believe that another language will become the global lingua franca within the next 50 years. English probably won't replace other languages, but its usefulness as the common language in trade, diplomacy, and pop culture will continue.
Is It Even Possible to Learn 10 Languages? Short answer: yes. Many polyglots say they've learned 10 or more languages—it's been said that the 19th-century priest Giuseppe Mezzofanti spoke 50 languages!
So will Mandarin replace English as the next global language? Answer: not yet. English rose to prominence through the British Empire and as a result there are native English speakers to be found across the globe. English is the language of shared popular culture – music, film, even sport.
The Natixis study claims French could overtake English and even Mandarin in terms of worldwide speakers by 2050.
Yes, and so is every other human language! Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users. This isn't a bad thing; if English hadn't changed since, say, 1950, we wouldn't have words to refer to modems, fax machines, or cable TV.
When a language dies, we lose cultures, entire civilizations, but also, we lose people. We lose perspectives, ideas, opinions, most importantly, we lose a unique way of being human.
As we have discussed before, a dead language does not have any native speaker, but it has some uses. Still, people use this language for different purposes. For example, Latin, Sanskrit, Coptic, Biblical Hebrew, etc., are the dead language.