endangered language
Fading mother tongue
An endangered language is one at risk of falling out of use, typically because fewer children are learning it as their native tongue.
Languages become endangered when speakers shift to dominant languages for economic or social reasons.
Linguists estimate that half the world's roughly 7,000 languages may disappear within this century.
Efforts to preserve endangered languages include documentation and immersion programs.
- documentationWritten proof or instructions
- dialectRegional language variety
- oral traditionCulture passed by speech
- spoken wordPoetry delivered aloud
- eldersSenior community members
assimilation · colonization · indigenous knowledge · globalization · economic pressure · storytelling · dying · discrimination · heritage preservation · immersion programs · vanishing · folklore · passing down · tribal elders · migration · speakers · native · fluent
- endangered languagesindigenous languages, minority languages, revitalization, extinct languages, UNESCO
- language typespidgin, creole, vernacular, patois, argot
- language loss
- Contact Languagespidgin, pidginization, relexification, code switching, substrate
- languagesEnglish, Arabic, Chinese, German, French
- language termsgrammar, word, vocabulary, syntax, synonym
endangered languagedominant language
Most widely used tongue
world language · global language · lingua franca · colonial language · official language