The World's Languages Are Fast Becoming Extinct

Ant sends news of a report, released a couple of weeks back by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Oregon, on the alarming rate of extinction of the world's languages. While half of all languages have gone extinct in the last 500 years, the half-life is dropping: half of the 7,000 languages spoken today won't exist by the year 2100. The NY Times adds this perspective: "83 languages with 'global' influence are spoken and written by 80 percent of the world population. Most of the others face extinction at a rate, the researchers said, that exceeds that of birds, mammals, fish and plants."

Comments

Re:What will happen to English?

[RealAlaskan]

``The English as she is spoke'' is a reference to what I recall was the English title of a Portuguese book, purporting to teach colloquial ESL. I think that this is a send up of it, rather than the original.

So, it wasn't a desperate attempt at PC, but a desperate attempt at humor.