If you were to take the familiar map of the world (and its 200 or so nation-states) and overlay that with a map of languages, you might be surprised with what you'll see. The world contains a whopping 7,000 languages. And, at present, about half of all languages are spoken by communities of 10,000 or fewer.

The inspiration to preserve languages from extintion is a relatively new movement. In 1992, the linguist Michael Krauss warned that linguistics would “go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated”. This helped light the spark.

Inspired by the new push for biodiversity and the growing movement for Indigenous rights, a cohort of linguists and language activists vowed to use new technologies to record and preserve as much as possible of the world’s vanishing linguistic heritage. With 573 known languages that are extinct, work began.

7000 Languages is one of those organizations working with speakers to record and document languages. AND, the cool part - they've made (free) language libraries accessible online that help us all learn.

https://www.7000.org/languages

Source: The Guardian
📸: Unsplash