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According to a new study by linguists, in the coming years many languages of the world can disappear without a trace. Already today about 7000 languages faced with the threat of extinction. “For example, the Ainu language in Japan’s territory has been seriously threatened since there are only 10 people left in the world, ”said the lead author Tatsuya Amano’s research. UN staff also noted that half of the existing languages will disappear by the end of this century if nothing will be done to save them. “Personally, I believe that the diversity of languages is directly related to the diversity of human crops that are definitely worth preserving, “Amano added. In seeking explanations for the disappearance of languages Amano and his colleagues first conducted a study whose purpose is to find out which languages are on the verge of extinction. For this, scientists were criteria similar to those used for identifying endangered species of animals and plants. Languages were considered endangered in if they were spoken to in very few places, as well as if a very limited number of people are fluent in them, which is rapidly declining. As a result of experience, researchers concluded that 25% of world languages are under direct threatened with extinction. After identifying places where rare endangered languages were recorded, scientists began to conduct a parallel between any environmental, social or economic factors that could affect extinction language. Amano emphasized that the disappearance of languages is directly related to economic development – that is, most of the languages go into non-existence in economically developed regions of the world. The economic growth can jeopardize languages for a variety of reasons. For instance, people gradually begin to communicate on one dominant language, which leads to a gradual abandonment of their own languages.
