Languages have been on a rapid decline throughout the course of human history. Estimated to be as many as 15,000 languages a millennium ago, today we are left with 6,000 or so languages spoken around the world, and this number is predicted to fall to as low as a few hundred within a century. Put simply, children around the world have stopped learning half of the world’s languages. This is most evident amongst the languages spoken by the indigenous populations of Australia. From a rich linguistic tapestry of over 250 languages at the time of European settlement, the number has shrunk to a patchwork of fifteen languages held together by threads of pidgin, and there seems to be little in the way of practical solutions to save more from dying.
Language Diversity: A Dying Concept
.png)
087-093_William Hay
(50.85KB)
