this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?

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[–] Litebit@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

How many vanished last century?

If need to, just preserve them into training material, movies, and other content, anyone wanting to learn them for whatever reason can do so in the future. Linguist are probably already doing this. Preserving them in some kind of library could also be useful resource when making movies/games from those olden period and using the actual spoken language from that time in the film/game.

I think most people learn/acquire languages for economic reasons to feed their families. Shouldn't be forcing people to learn language they don't need.

Actually, looking at history, no language will survive. Modern English is only 400 years old. In a few hundred years, all languages will be very different from what they are now. Different enough to be considered a different language. It is normal.

"Old English, a Germanic language, was spoken in England for centuries. The Norman Conquest in 1066 brought French into England, and the two languages gradually merged, resulting in Middle English. " war caused the "death" of old english.

Even language that will go extinct may be related to other languages so technically part of the language is still around. Korea share similarities to chinese, jap. Korean even share many words with Tamil language. So, just like old english went extinct or lost because it merged with others and became something else. Or a king could decide to create a new language, killing off existing language.

[–] nyamlae@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Actually, looking at history, no language will survive. Modern English is only 400 years old. >In a few hundred years, all languages will be very different from what they are now. Different enough to be considered a different language. It is normal.

This is a completely different process than what's outlined in the article. The article is about outright language death, like if Old English had died so that it never became Modern English.

Language change is normal. Language death is, in our world, largely a result of colonialism, racism, and anti-Indigenous policies.