The BBC has an interesting article on how languages are fast disappearing.
Quotes from the article:
An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades.
In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.
- 6% of the world's languages are spoken by 94% of the world's population.
- The remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the population.
- The largest single language by population is Mandarin (845 million speakers), followed by Spanish (329 million speakers), and English (328 million speakers).
- 133 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people.
A few years ago, I got involved with a small group of people called "The Chong", who live in a village near Chantaburi, which is at the east side of Thailand, near Cambodia. Their aged district leader, Kamnan Cheun, has been trying to preserve their language and has developed a written alphabet for this language, which was previously only oral. I tried to help, raised a few baht from donations, and paid a Thai woman to develop a Chong TrueType font.
However, the project went nowhere, because basically, it's a marginal language and the Thai government has an official policy of only promoting Central Thai and trying to marginalize all of the other 75 languages spoken in Thailand, including the largest group, Isaan Lao.
The problem with the world is that there is too much apathy about languages, but then, who cares?
You can read the BBC article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8311000/8311069.stmMore about the Chong, including lots of pictures, here:
http://www.thai-software.com/Chong/default.htm
