| Language Endangerment Status | |
|---|---|
| Extinct (EX) | |
| |
| Endangered | |
| Safe | |
| |
Other categories | |
Related topics | |
 UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categories | |
The UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger was an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the Red Book of Endangered Languages as a title in print after a brief period of overlap before being transferred to an online only publication.
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In 1992, the International Congress of Linguists (CIPL) meeting in Canada discussed the topic of endangered languages, as a result of which it formed the Endangered Languages Committee. It held an international meeting also in 1992 in Paris to place the topic before the world and initiate action. The meeting was considered important enough to come under the authority of UNESCO.
At the instigation of Stephen Wurm the committee resolved to create a research center, the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages (ICHEL) and to publish the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages based on the data it collected, the title being derived from that of the Red Book of Endangered Species. Shigeru Tsuchida was to start the research center. It began in 1994 at the University of Tokyo with Tasaka Tsunoda as its director.
Meanwhile, the initial reports on endangered languages had already been collected and submitted to UNESCO by regional experts in 1993. [1] These have since been turned over to ICHEL, which created a website to enable regularly updates to be made available promptly.
In February 2009, UNESCO launched an online edition [2] of the Atlas of Endangered Languages which covers the whole world, contains much more information than previous printed editions and offers the possibility to users to provide online feedback, in view of its constant updating. [3]
The UNESCO list has 6 categories of endangerment: [4]
Pakistan had a population of 241,492,197 according to the final results of the 2023 Census. This figure includes Pakistan's four provinces e.g. Punjab, Sindh, KPK, Balochistan and Islamabad Capital Territory. AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan's census data is yet to be approved by CCI Council of Pakistan. Pakistan is the world's fifth most populous country.
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead language". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "extinct language". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are fluent speakers. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, mass migration, cultural replacement, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide.
Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
Western Armenian is one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian, the other being Eastern Armenian. It is based mainly on the Istanbul Armenian dialect, as opposed to Eastern Armenian, which is mainly based on the Yerevan Armenian dialect.
The Lombard language belongs to the Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages and is characterized by a Celtic linguistic substratum and a Lombardic linguistic superstratum and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland, including most of Lombardy and some areas of the neighbouring regions, notably the far eastern side of Piedmont and the extreme western side of Trentino, and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden. The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, or governments. Some argue for a distinction between language revival and language revitalization. There has only been one successful instance of a complete language revival, the Hebrew language, creating a new generation of native speakers without any pre-existing native speakers as a model.
There are some 130 to 195 languages spoken in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages native to the archipelago. A number of Spanish-influenced creole varieties generally called Chavacano along with some local varieties of Chinese are also spoken in certain communities. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, as the national language and an official language along with English. Filipino is regulated by Commission on the Filipino Language and serves as a lingua franca used by Filipinos of various ethnolinguistic backgrounds.
Poitevin–Saintongeais is a language spoken in the regions of the Pays de la Loire and Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Poitevin–Saintongeais is officially recognised by the French Ministry of Culture as a language with two dialects: Poitevin and Saintongeais. The language belongs to the langues d'oïl subbranch of the Gallo-Romance languages.
Champenois is a Romance language among the langues d'oïl spoken by a minority of people in Champagne and Île-de-France provinces in France, as well as in a handful of towns in southern Belgium.
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers, when it becomes known as an extinct language. A related term is linguicide, the death of a language from natural or political causes, and, rarely, glottophagy, the absorption or replacement of a minor language by a major language.
Afghanistan is a linguistically diverse nation, with upwards of 40 distinct languages. However, Dari and Pashto are two of the most prominent languages in the country, and have shared official status under various governments of Afghanistan. Dari, as a shared language between multiple ethnic groups in the country, has served as a historical lingua franca between different linguistic groups in the region and is the most widely understood language in the country. Pashto is also widely spoken in the region; but the language does not have a diverse multi-ethnic population like Dari, and the language is not as commonly spoken by non-Pashtuns. Dari and Pashto are also "relatives", as both are Iranian languages.
Language preservation is the preservation of endangered or dead languages. With language death, studies in linguistics, anthropology, prehistory and psychology lose diversity. As history is remembered with the help of historic preservation, language preservation maintains dying or dead languages for future studies in such fields. Organizations such as 7000 Languages and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages document and teach endangered languages as a way of preserving languages. Sometimes parts of languages are preserved in museums, such as tablets containing Cuneiform writing from Mesopotamia. Additionally, dictionaries have been published to help keep record of languages, such as the Kalapuya dictionary published by the Siletz tribe in Oregon.
Zazao is an Oceanic language spoken in the Solomon Islands. Its speakers live on Santa Isabel Island. It is classified as “critically endangered” by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, because its speakers usually speak the Cheke Holo language or the Zabana language.
“Endangered Languages.” CIPL, 14 Jan. 2021, ciplnet.com/endangered-languages/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.