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.
English will most likely not become the dominant world language as more people speak more than one language, a language expert reports. The world faces a future of people speaking more than one language, with English no longer seen as likely to become dominant, a British language expert says in a new analysis.
Mandarin. Mandarin is likely to be the most spoken language in 2050 because of its vast number of speakers. The economic influence of China will also prove vital for the continued use and spread of Chinese languages around the world.
Around 1,500 endangered and rare languages are at a high risk of being lost in the next century, according to a study of thousands of spoken languages.
Indeed, language use changes over time, with one language being the predominant spoken form for certain generations, only to be replaced by another. As more and more people migrate around the world, they bring their languages with them – something from which the United States isn't exempt.
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.
Kawishana. Spoken near the Japura River in Brazil, Kawishana (Kaixana) was once a popular language utilized by many. The numbers began dwindling, eventually dropping down to 200. Now, there remains only one documented person still able to speak the language.
Currently, there are 573 known extinct languages. These are languages that are no longer spoken or studied. Many were local dialects with no records of their alphabet or wording, and so are forever lost. Others were major languages of their time, but society and changing cultures left them behind.
Around 1,500 known languages may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. Current levels of language loss could triple in the next 40 years. Greater education and mobility marginalize some minor languages. One language per month could disappear, without intervention.
Hawaian – Critically endangered
Today, there are several language preservation initiatives and organizations advocating the revival of Hawaiian language and trying to raise awareness about the consequences of the loss of indigenous languages.
Language grows and continuously adapts, evolving as we come up with better words that reflect our society or culture.
Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and Indonesian will dominate much of the business world by 2050, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian.
It is estimated that it takes 4 times longer for a native English speaker to become proficient in Chinese than it does to reach a similar level in French or Spanish. Therefore, it would seem that, for the next generation at least, Mandarin will not replace English as the global language.
Nonetheless, experts predict that even if Chinese does replace English as the primary world language, English will still be widely spoken for generations to come. Approximately 1.5 billion people speak some level of English. 600 million of them are still learning, but that's still more people than any other language.
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.
1. English – 1,121 million speakers. It is the most widely spoken language in the world because of the global impact of England and the United States in the last three centuries.
The extinction of a language results in the irrecoverable loss of unique cultural knowledge embodied in it for centuries, including historical, spiritual and ecological knowledge that may be essential for the survival of not only its speakers, but also countless others.”
Sumerian language, language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 bce in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium bce.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
Beyond the web, over a third of the approximate 7,100 languages spoken today are in danger of disappearing. Ethnologue reports that 1,519 languages are “in trouble” and 915 are considered to be “dying”. They project that the world loses six languages per year.
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?
The world's youngest language, coming in at only 100 years old (officially), is the South African language of Afrikaans. Surprised? Afrikaans, the natively spoken language of 7 million South Africans, was born from the white Dutch, French, and German colonizers in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Most languages, though, die out gradually as successive generations of speakers become bilingual and then begin to lose proficiency in their traditional languages. This often happens when speakers seek to learn a more-prestigious language in order to gain social and economic advantages or to avoid discrimination.
It is crucial to understand that languages represent cultures. This reiterates the need to protect endangered languages. Without its language, a culture can die out quickly and become lost to time. Above all, preserving languages is as critical as preserving diverse wildlife to maintain a balanced ecosystem.