Experts warn 1,500 languages could disappear by the end of the century

By Gwyn Wright via SWNS

As many as 1,500 languages could disappear by the end of the century, according to a study.

Around half of the world’s 7,000 recognized languages are in danger.

Language loss could triple in the next 40 years unless immediate steps are taken to preserve them.

The world-first study led by the Australian National University in Canberra looked at factors that could put less spoken tongues at risk.

The research, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, uncovers the biggest range of factors ever putting at-risk languages in danger.

They found that the more time we spend in school, the more endangered at-risk languages become, highlighting the need for bilingual education.

More surprisingly, they found the more roads there are in an area, the more likely endangered languages are to go extinct.

When many endangered languages are spoken in a fairly small area, they are not particularly at risk.

Once roads and transport links are built, linking rural areas with towns and cities, dominant languages such as English tend to ‘steam roll’ over less widely spoken tongues.

The findings highlight the urgent need to better preserve languages which are under threat as the world enters the UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages next year, the researchers add.

"We found that without immediate intervention, language loss could triple in the next 40 years,"said study co-author Professor Lindell Bromham.

"By the end of this century, 1,500 languages could cease to be spoken.

"Across the 51 factors or predictors we investigated, we also found some really unexpected and surprising pressure points. This included road density.

"Contact with other local languages is not the problem, in fact languages in contact with many other indigenous languages tend to be less endangered. But we found the more roads there are, connecting country to city, and villages to towns, the higher the risk of languages being endangered.

"It is as if roads are helping dominant languages ‘steam roll’ over other smaller languages.

"When a language is lost, or ‘sleeping’ as we say for languages that are no longer spoken, we lose so much of our human cultural diversity. Every language is brilliant in its own way.

"Many of the languages predicted to be lost in this century still have fluent speakers, so there is still the chance to invest in supporting communities to revitalize indigenous languages and keep them strong for future generations."

Study co-author Professor Felicity Meakins of the University of Queensland said: “Australia has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest rates of language loss worldwide.

“Prior to colonization, more than 250 First Nations languages were spoken, and multilingualism was the norm. Now, only 40 languages are still spoken and just 12 are being learnt by children."