By Century's End, Half the World's Languages Will Have Vanished

Do you know what happened last week? A language went extinct.

According to a new report, there are five parts of the planet where languages, according to the Times, are disappearing "in an instant." Some depart from the human race entirely, others are merged into more dominant languages, for instance, the way Russia in the 1950s enrolled children of minority populations in boarding schools, thereby extinguishing their first language.

National Geographic, who participated in the research, has assembled an interactive site of the world's regions of endangered languages. They are found on every continent, from the American midwest to Southeast Asia.

Of the 7,000 languages spoken on the planet today, National Geographic claims that by the end of the century, half will have vanished.

Comments

[Buzz]

If New Guinea tribesmen, loincloths and all, wanna start-up a Starbucks deep in the jungle, they better damn well start speaking the language if they want to push the high margin "super vente taller vente enorme extra-vente alot de pipi". Right now, few jungle headhunters know "ugh ugh" means big latte.

Hey, progress has a price.