Literature
Endangered language
Endangered and Dying Languages
Also known as threatened language, disappearing language
Right now, somewhere in the world, the last person who speaks a whole language is growing old. When they die, that language dies too, and about one disappears every few weeks. That is a huge loss, because a language holds a group's stories, jokes, and hard-won knowledge, like the names of plants that heal. Saving languages links to Science: Biotechnology and Genetics & DNA, since old words often carry medical and farming know-how researchers want back. It also ties to Technology: Machines That Learn, because computers can now record and even help revive tongues almost no one speaks anymore.
Key people
- Natalie DiazMojave poet, writer and basketball player
- Emily M. BenderAmerican linguist
- Alice Carmichael HarrisAmerican linguist and caucasologist (b. 1947)
- Chaak Ming LauLinguist, educator
Timeline
- 201132.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality.
- 2025As of November 2025, these categories are currently being reviewed by UNESCO to ensure they reflect the most up-to-date information on language vitality worldwide.
Read
- Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languagesChristopher Moseley · 2007Book
- Historical Linguistics and Endangered LanguagesPatience Epps · 2021Book
- Cambridge Handbook of Endangered LanguagesPeter K. Austin · 2011Book
- Endangered Languages and New TechnologiesMari C. Jones · 2014Book
Listen
- Kutxi — Voices from Endangered Language CommunitiesOkan DalePodcast
- Endangered SpeciesMayank GudhkaPodcast
- Endangered Giant PandaAdh-MitePodcast
- Endangered Species, A Sad RealityLaura ArangoPodcast
Voices to follow
- Tim Brookes@EndangeredAlpha · XFounder of the Endangered Alphabets Project
- Emily M. Bender@emilymbender · XAmerican linguist
Debates
- Should resources for endangered languages prioritize documentation or revitalization?One view: Documentation preserves linguistic data for future study even if a language goes extinct. · Another: Revitalization actively supports speakers and aims to increase the number of living speakers.Open question
- Who should lead language revitalization efforts?One view: Academic linguists and external experts bring specialized knowledge and resources. · Another: Community members and elders possess cultural knowledge and ensure authentic, sustainable efforts.Open question
- Is language loss an inevitable part of globalization?One view: Economic and social pressures often lead to dominant languages replacing smaller ones. · Another: Conscious efforts and policy support can reverse language shift and promote multilingualism.Open question
Glossary
- Endangered languageA language at risk of falling out of use as its speakers die out or shift to another language.
- Language revitalizationAn attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one.
- Language documentationThe creation of a lasting record of a language's grammar, vocabulary, and cultural use.
- Linguistic diversityThe variety of languages spoken in the world or in a particular region.
- Language shiftThe process by which a community abandons its native language in favor of another.
- Language isolateA natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages.
Careers
Roles this can lead toward
Student research
Published policy papers by One Young India delegates — every delegate leaves published under their own name.
- Language in Education Policy: For a Multilingual IndiaAnvesha Kaustubh Kukde
- The Decline of Regional Languages in India – Preserving Linguistic Diversity in a Globalized EraSajinkya Sharan Gupta
Threads 4
Where this connects to other fields — and why it's worth knowing.
- Biotechnology Science
In some languages, a plant's name literally tells you which leaf cures which fever. That name is a medical clue built up over centuries. When the last person who speaks that language dies, the clue vanishes, and drug hunters lose a lead nobody ever wrote down.
- Cryptography & Digital Security Mathematics
In World War II, the US had Navajo soldiers send battle messages in their own language, and the enemy never cracked it. A language almost nobody outside the tribe spoke worked as an unbreakable code. Its strength was simply how few people on Earth could understand it.
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Technology
People hoped AI translators would rescue dying languages. But an AI only learns a language by reading mountains of text in it, and rare languages barely have any. So the tongues that most need saving are the ones AI quietly ignores, pushing them even closer to vanishing.
- Genetics & DNA Science
Long before DNA, language detectives built family trees of languages by tracking how sounds slowly changed, like how Latin split into Spanish and French. A century later, biologists used the exact same branching trick to trace ancestry from tiny changes in DNA. Same logic, two totally different codes.