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Article: Mind your languages.(languages becoming extinct)
- Article from:
- Geographical
- Article date:
- November 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Circle Publishing Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The race is on to save the world's dying languages, and some researchers have been held at gunpoint for their pains. In 100 years, around 90 per cent of the existing 6,000-or-so languages will have died out.
THOUSANDS OF THE WORLD'S languages are dying, taking to the grave not just words but records of civilisations and cultures that we may never come to fully know or understand. It is a loss of which few people are aware, yet it will affect us all. Linguists have calculated that of the 6,000 languages currently spoken worldwide most will disappear over the next hundred years. As many as 1,000 languages have died in the past 400 years. Conversely, the handful of ...