Language Extinction Is Driven By Economic Growth

What are the main drivers and repercussions behind the extinction of the worlds minority languages?

It’s estimated that by the year 2100, over half of the Planet Earth’s 7000 languages – many of them not yet even recorded – may disappear.  With a different tongue dying approximately every 2 weeks, it would appear that languages are becoming extinct even faster than animal species are!

A language is considered to be endangered when parents are no longer teaching it to their children, and it is no longer being actively used in everyday life. A language is considered to be nearly extinct when it is spoken by only a few elderly native speakers.

“Many endangered languages have rich oral cultures with stories, songs, and histories passed on to younger generations, but no written forms. With the extinction of a language, an entire culture is lost.”