Languages carry identity, culture and knowledge. Learn what’s causing global language loss and how translation and documentation are helping endangered languages to survive.
It’s thought that a language dies every two weeks on average. This is according to UNESCO research showing that half of the world’s roughly 7,000 languages are at risk of extinction by the end of the century.
Linguists estimate that around 31,000 languages have existed in human history. With only approximately 7,000 still spoken today, that means around 81% of human languages have become extinct.
But there’s more to the extinction of a language than the loss of the language itself. For these communities, it signifies the loss of identity, heritage and tradition. For the rest of humanity, it means losing worldviews and indigenous knowledge we can never recover.
Why do languages die out?
Migration and globalisation play a big role, encouraging people to adopt institutional languages to get ahead in education and work, and keep up with the media. Histories of colonisation also often push rarer languages aside in favour of a country’s chosen dominant language. In short, parents stop passing the language on to their children, and within just a few generations, entire vocabularies can disappear.
In 2010, UNESCO released their third edition of the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. To understand how linguists measure language loss, UNESCO classifies languages into six degrees of endangerment based on intergenerational transmission. In other words, whether children are still learning the language at home.
Degree of endangerment | Meaning |
Safe | The language is spoken by all generations. The intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted. |
Stable yet threatened | The language is spoken in most contexts by all generations with unbroken intergenerational transmission, yet multilingualism in the native language and one or more dominant language(s) has usurped certain important communication contexts. |
Vulnerable | Most (but not all) children or families of a particular community speak their parental language as their first language, but this may be specific to social domains (such as the home). |
Definitely endangered | The language is no longer learned as the mother tongue by the children in the home. The youngest speakers are of the parental generation. Parents may still speak their language to their children, but their children do not typically respond in the language. |
Severely endangered | The language is spoken only by grandparents and older generations. The parent generation may still understand it, but don’t typically speak it to their children or among themselves. |
Critically endangered | The youngest speakers are in the great-grandparental generation, and the language is not used for everyday interactions. These older speakers often only remember part of the language, but don’t use it on a regular basis since there are few people left to speak it with. |
Extinct | There is no one who can speak or remember the language. |
Efforts to save endangered languages
Around the globe, there are linguists, professors, policymakers and native speakers fighting to keep their language and culture alive. Here are a few of our favourite examples:
Kenya’s word forest: Teacher Juliana Loshiro teaches both elders and youth to revive Yaakunte. Her belief is that by saving the language, she safeguards the knowledge it holds about the flora and fauna of the forest and empowers the future Yaaku to protect it. Her students plant indigenous trees, tagging them with labels that have words in both Yaakunte and English.
Paraguay’s wisdoms: In Paraguay, nationwide preservation efforts are underway to protect the Guaraní language, one of the country’s two official languages alongside Spanish. With the existence of words that portray their values and do not have Spanish translations, the language holds more to their people than a form of communication.
Lesotho’s academic efforts: Two academics from Britain and Germany travelled to a remote valley in Lesotho to document the endangered language SiPhuthi, which is under threat from the dominant Sesotho. With the help of local interpreters, they interviewed the village’s traditional healers. Since then, researchers have worked with locals to record more than 40 hours of SiPhuthi video, decide on an orthography, and publish a 3,000-word dictionary.
The role of translation in the revival of endangered languages
Translation plays a powerful role in giving endangered languages new life, not only by preserving them, but by making them relevant and usable in everyday contexts.
In Alwyns Kop in Lesotho, the linguists working on the revival of SiPhuthi are translating the bible so that local people can engage with their faith in their own language. For a Christian community, the existence of important texts in their mother tongue is a significant step forward. The language can once more become part of daily life.
More broadly, recording and translating oral histories, proverbs, native terms and cultural narratives help to protect the identity, values and knowledge held within a language. For speakers themselves, seeing their language written, published, or heard in modern formats can provide validation and pride in their linguistic heritage.
Translation can also help endangered languages to reach younger generations. A short voiceover of a Finding Nemo scene into Navajo, for example, shows how familiar media can make indigenous languages feel relevant and accessible to children growing up surrounded by dominant global languages.
Finally, translating stories that once existed only orally into bilingual formats preserves linguistic data for future study. And by sharing those stories in global languages as well, communities can raise awareness and attract support for voices that might otherwise be lost.
What does the future hold for endangered languages?
The future doesn’t rest solely with the linguists and local communities working to keep these languages alive: it also depends on global awareness and support. Sharing stories from and about endangered languages helps to keep them visible. Supporting initiatives working directly with communities to document and teach their mother tongues helps to propel their cause.
At Aktuel Translations, we believe that language connects people, and preserving linguistic diversity is part of protecting that connection. If your organisation works with multilingual content, cultural research, or community projects and wants to communicate responsibly across borders, we’d love to help.
Get in touch with our team to learn how human-led translation can support global understanding alongside global business.
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