The million inhabitants are scattered across more than 17, islands. It makes sense that centuries ago, there were numerous distinct languages being spoken throughout the archipelago at a time when the inhabitants did not come into contact with one another.
There was similar linguistic diversity in South America before the colonial powers of Spain and Portugal divided the territories among themselves and consequently spread both of their languages. Today, there are over languages spoken in Indonesia. Papua New Guinea has the most languages in the world, however, numbering over Where are the rest of the roughly 7, languages hiding though? Many of these lesser-known languages some of which are centuries old are being kept alive by a handful of speakers.
Or Chukchi, an old Siberian language used in the northeast of Russia by more than 5, native speakers. Or Ainu, the language of the native inhabitants in northern Japan, which now has barely 10 native speakers. As can be easily understood from these examples, most of these languages will die out over the next few centuries.
But does it have to be that way? The answer is simple, but not that straightforward: yes and no. This is technically different from an endangeredlanguage, which is a language no learners among the children of people who speak that language. An endangered language theoretically does not have a strict numerical requirements. There are also dormant languages, which have no primary speakers but are identified with a living group of people.
Chamicuro, an Arawakan language in Peru, is an example with about 20 speakers. Updated October 12, Infoplease Staff. See also:. Esperanto Speakers. Trending Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
With a population of eight million, a little more than that of Denmark or Scotland, they speak no fewer than languages! And they are all very different. Some languages sound very similar, have similar words, and stem from the same proto-language, where dialects have developed into different languages.
Linguists refer to related languages as coming from the same linguistic family. For example, Danish belongs to the Indo-European family, just like almost all languages spoken between Ireland and Bengal, including Armenian in the Black Sea region and Urdu in Pakistan. Any language can be viewed as a tool that we humans use to talk about anything in the Universe and fictional worlds. Some languages have no numerals or adjectives, others have 30 ways of forming a plural and others have none at all.
Some have 15, different verb tenses and others have no tenses. Read More: Evolutionary biology can help us understand how language works. People chose to speak a language that gives better job prospects, and forget that this does not mean they have to say farewell to other languages spoken by their parents.
An average language is spoken by somewhere between 3, and 5, people. While many languages die out, new languages also emerge.
When two or more groups of people with different languages come into contact with each other, the resulting language is called a creole when people start speaking it as their mother tongue or a default language in the community. Such a situation has occurred many times and there are perhaps known creole languages. It typically starts among adults who do not share a common tongue, such as soldiers, traders, workers, students, or slaves. Some of them can be relatively powerful people, such as plantation owners, slave traders, or army commanders, who exert more influence than others.
And everyone else learns their vocabulary. In these situations, no authority tells people how to conjugate their verbs. Instead, they create a new one that is easier to pick up using the language of the most powerful group as a basis. The recipe to create a new creole language is logical and simple.
So you just forget about them. The Sumerians who lived in southern Mesopotamia modern-day southern Iraq introduced the first writing system to the world. Their descendants known as Sumero-Babylonians developed the timing system that we still use today, whereby an hour divided into 60 minutes is in turn divided into 60 seconds. As mentioned earlier, the number of known languages is constantly declining. But why?
A key factor is in education. When a language ceases to be taught to young children, its rate of survival is very bleak. It can then be predicted with near certainty that it will not survive the death of the present native speakers. An example of this can be seen in North America where indigenous languages exist.
Only eight of these languages are spoken by 10, people and approximately 75 are spoken by a handful of mature aged people. What else can be concluded but that they will soon become extinct. This rapid decline in indigenous languages is due to the overwhelming presence and pressure of the European settlement over the past years. In Australia , more than aboriginal languages have become extinct since European settlers arrived.
Based on current circumstances, linguists are now able to estimate that at least 3, languages will be lost within the next century. During the 2nd millennium BC, only seven languages became extinct. As the years past the number of dead languages increased like rapid-fire. The highest number of languages lost was during the 20th century when a total of languages were declared extinct. Already this century 12 languages have been classified as dead.
The most recent being the Klallam language, when in February Hazel Sampson, its last native speaker passed away. Here are two ways in which you can learn more and help indigenous people protect their languages and traditional knowledge:.
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