25th February, 2009

More than 200 languages have disappeared in the past three generations and some 2,500 more are endangered.

That’s according to the new edition of UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Released earlier this month, the report says that 199 languages used today have less than 10 speakers and 178 have between 10 and 50.

Among those languages which have become extinct are: Manx, from the Isle of Man, which died out in 1974; Aasax, from Tanzania, which was last heard in 1976, Ubykh, in Turkey, which disappeared in 1992 and Eyak, in Alaska, which died out only last year.

The atlas says that of the 6,000 languages in the world, 538 are categorised as “critically endangered”, 502 as “severely endangered”, 632 as “definitely endangered”, and 607 as “unsafe”. In Australia, 108 languages are classified as being in various forms of danger.

UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura says the death of a language “leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it – from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes”.

“The loss of languages is also detrimental to humanity’s grasp of biodiversity, as they transmit much knowledge about the nature and the universe,” he says.

The atlas also shows that some languages - already shown as being extinct - are in the process of being revitalised. These include Cornish, spoken in Cornwall in the UK, and Sishee, spoken in New Caledonia.

~ www.unesco.org

- DAVID ADAMS