About the Endangered Languages Project Humanity today is facing a massive extinction: languages are disappearing at an unprecedented pace.

And when that happens, a unique vision of the world is lost. With every language that dies we lose an enormous cultural heritage; the understanding of how humans relate to the world around us; scientific, medical and botanical knowledge; and most importantly, we lose the expression of communities humor, love and life. In short, we lose the testimony of centuries of life. Languages are entities that are alive and in constant flux, and their extinction is not new; however, the pace at which languages are disappearing today has no precedent and is alarming. About half of the worlds approximate 7,000 languages are at risk of disappearing in the next 100 years. But today we have tools and technology at our fingertips that could become a game changer Endangered Languages A language is a living, breathing thing, much like the community or nation that uses it. Like any other living thing, it has a lifespan. Throughout the history of language, weve seen many languages simply disappear from the Earth or almost disappear. This is a process that continues today; if you travel around you can encounter hundreds of languages that are spoken by a very few people. In fact, there exist languages that have just one native speaker left in the world. First of all, let us define : What is an endangered language? Wikipedia says: An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use as its speakers die out or shift to speaking another language. Or: An endangered language is a language headed for extinction. It is a language without monolingual speakers, people who speak only that language. It is a language spoken by a minority of people in the nation and for that reason is held in low esteem, causing its speakers to avoid using it or passing it on to their children. For instance, 20 years ago, all of the children in the Yupik community in Alaska spoke Yupik; now the youngest speakers are in their 20's. Mohawk and Onondaga are still spoken in upstate New York but only by older adults. Many languages today have only one remaining speaker, an older person who will take that language with him or her to the grave. Its important to make the difference between: Dead language a language which has no more native speakers Extinct language a language that is not spoken by anyone at all. 10 Most Endangered Languages In The World are: APIACA - the language only appears to have one remaining speaker in 2007. This in spite of an ethnic population hovering around 192 people. BIKYA - The last contact with the only known Bikya speaker occurred in 1986. Disconcerting to be certain, as the remaining speaker also happened to be the last known Bikya in Cameroon. TAJE - was apparently only spoken by one person in 2000. Its entirely plausible that it may have tragically passed into extinction since then, but no linguist or ethnographer knows for certain DAMPELAS - only one of the 10,300 Dampelas peoples spoke the Austronesian language as of 2000 meaning it may very well be extinct by now. DIAHOI in 2006, Diahoi had only one speaker to its credit KAIXANA - The last known individual to boast Kaixana as his primary language was Raimundo Avelino. He was 78 as of 2008, living in the Limoeiro, Amazonas, Brazil LAUA - The last of the Laua continues to speak the language and live the traditional lifestyle in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. YAMANA - In an isolated pocket near Chiles Beagle Canal Naval Base lives Cristina Calderon, the last fullblooded Yamana.

PEMONO - Little is known of this indigenous Venezuelan language other than the location of its last contacted speaker in Majagua. It may already be extinct without anyone speaking it.

There are about 187 endangered languages in Europe alone, ranging from Guernsey French to Gaelic in Ireland, from the Cornish language to the Algherese language of Italy, from the Gagauz language within Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Greece, Macedonia and Turkey. All of these languages potentially may have zero living speakers within the next generation, and Im not sure this is a bad thing. I will mourn these languages, but I dont think we should save them. As translators, we have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand we mourn the passing of a language because it represents a final shift in a culture, a permanent loss of some bit of their identity, and the loss of some small portion of the ingredients that make the world such a fascinating mash-up of ideas and cultures. Every dead language makes the world a bit more homogeneous, a bit more boring. On the other hand, this is a natural process. I think artificially extending the lifespan of a dying language is just that: Artificial. You still lose the cultural significance and the life the language once enjoyed. What youre left with is a zombie language maintained by the tourism board. For one thing, I think the world is a closer, more peaceful place with fewer languages. If you remove the communication barrier of different languages, and you remove the danger of poor translations changing the meaning of speeches and phrases, you remove a great deal of the uncertainty and fear of different regions and people. Imagine being able to travel anywhere in the world and being able to easily communicate!

I think resources and efforts should be put into recording the sounds, grammar, and vocabulary of dying languages, not in propping them up artificially. This way future generations who love languages the way I do can refer back to the worlds dead languages and study them, enjoy them, listen to them not be forced to learn them in school in a desultory and unproductive way. In the end, no amount of legislation or tax money will save a dying language. If the people who would normally speak it lose their desire to do so, its usually because of forces beyond our control. Sometimes you just have to let history unspool naturally.