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Interesting facts about foreign languages, particularly minority languages

Although this isn't entirely relative I found these facts in a Geographical article on the decrease in minority languages and thought that people here would be as interested in them as I was.

- In the Yunnan Province (in China) there still exists a language called Dongba which is the last living hieroglyphic language.

- There are 167 critically endangered languages in Australia

- In 1981 Wakawaka, a language in Australia, was spoken by 3 people

- There are 4,000 languages spoken by indigenous peoples

- In Nigeria there are 510 languages spoken

- There are 6,700 languages in use today

- At the peak of language diversity, around 10,000 years ago, there were at least 12,000 languages in use

- More than half of the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people

- In the Americas and Australias, 337 languages are spoken by only a few elderly people

- In Tlingit, a village in Alaska, a language called Haida is spoken by only 65 people

- UNESCO celebrates International Mother Language day on 21st February

- There are 204 languages spoken by fewer than 10 people

- Kutenai, a language in Canada, was spoken by 6 pople in 2003

- There are 1,495 languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family

- Around 1,500 languages are used on the internet (in 1995, 95% of hosts on the internet spoke English, by 2003 it stood at less than 50%)

- Wikipedia is represented 150 languages including Cornish, Breton, Aragonese, Wolof, Cherokee and Aromanian.

- 820 languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea

- There are 115 countries in which English is spoken and 21 where Spanish is the official language

- The first Welsh TV channel was established by the British government in 1982

- Less than 2% of Ireland use Irish in day to day life

- Over 100,000 years of human life there have been 130,000 languages spoken

- More than half of the worlds languages could be extinct by the end of the century and many may not last past 2050

- Fewer than 100 people speak Onge, a language in the South Andaman islands. Among those who do it is their primary language and the first language of all the island's children.

Note: A language is considered endangered if it has less than 10,000 speakers.
Reply 1
Avatar for Cambyses
Cambyses
This makes me kind of sad in a way, though it is inevitable that most languages are going to die out by the end of the century, or at least it looks that way.
I find it amazing how only one village or family can always communicate in a language that's spoken only by them. I'd love that!
Another interesting fact:

Linguists predict that English is due to extinct within the end of this month.
Reply 3
Avatar for paddy
paddy
14
I wish, then I could really get on with my Spanish!
There's only 40 speakers of Manx (traiditonal language of the Isle of Man).

More people speak Welsh today than 30 years ago.

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