2,500 languages threatened with extinction: UNESCO

[Nicholas]

2,500 languages threatened with extinction: UNESCO

by Amer Ouali
Thu Feb 19, 12:17 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – The world has lost Manx in the Isle of Man, Ubykh in Turkey and last year Alaska's last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aboriginal language with her.
Of the 6,900 languages spoken in the world, some 2,500 are endangered, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO said Thursday as it released its latest atlas of world languages.
That represents a multi-fold increase from the last atlas compiled in 2001 which listed 900 languages threatened with extinction.

Source and more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219...esunesco/print

What's aspect of this issue that I find most saddening is the fact that every language lost represents not just the loss of human cultural diversity but also represents the loss of knowledge as well.

[ChemMJW]

What's aspect of this issue that I find most saddening is the fact that every language lost represents not just the loss of human cultural diversity but also represents the loss of knowledge as well.

What a shame!

Wie schade!

¡Qué lástima!

[Hweila]

I fail to see why this is "sad". I mean, it makes sense to try and document languages before they die out, but there's no real reason to attempt to artificially keep a language which has lost its usefulness around as a live, spoken language.