Every year, the world loses some of its 7,000 languages. Parents stop speaking them to their children, words are forgotten and communities lose the ability to read their own scripts. The rate of loss is quickening, from one every three months a decade ago to one every 40 days in 2019 – meaning nine languages die a year.
The UN’s culture agency, Unesco, said predictions that half of the world’s languages will have died out by the end of the century are optimistic. Some are disappearing with their last speakers, but thousands are endangered because they are not being spoken widely enough or used in formal settings such as schools or workplaces.
A quiet fightback is under way in communities that feel their traditions are drowned out. Tochi Precious, a…
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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 17 January 2025