Chinese minority languages among those at risk of dying out, with no one left to speak them, study finds
- A new study has found 25 languages or dialects in China are under threat of extinction, including one that has only an estimated 10 native speakers left
- Experts believe there are now between 6,000 and 7,000 languages spoken in the world, a figure that has gone down from the 10,000 spoken over 100 years ago
Dozens of languages and dialects in China are in danger of disappearing, a new study has found.
According to the study by website WordFinder, based on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 25 of China’s spoken languages are “critically endangered”.
This puts it seventh in the world behind the United States, with 82 languages critically endangered), Brazil, with 45, Australia, with 42, India (41), Indonesia (32) and Canada (30).
“Languages are about more than vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar,” says WordFinder editor Michael Kwan. “Languages provide insight into how a cultural group views and interacts with the world around them, as well as the history of the people in a particular area.”
The latest census (2009-2013), released last month, revealed that 28 per cent of critically endangered languages are spoken in just three countries – the US (which accounts for 13.5 per cent), Brazil (7.4 per cent) and Australia (6.9 per cent) – and that they and seven other countries account for more than half of the critically endangered languages in the world.
