{"id":68784,"date":"2025-01-07T16:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T07:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jan\/07\/cultural-identity-saving-worlds-endangered-languages-activists-online-tools-rohingya-igbo-angika"},"modified":"2025-01-07T16:00:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T07:00:04","slug":"from-igbo-to-angika-how-to-save-the-worlds-3000-endangered-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=68784","title":{"rendered":"From Igbo to Angika: how to save the world\u2019s 3,000 endangered languages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With half of all languages predicted to die out in decades, activists are turning to online tools to preserve them<\/p>\n<p>Every year, the world loses some of its 7,000 languages. Parents stop speaking them to their children, words are forgotten and communities lose the ability to read their own scripts. The rate of loss is quickening, from one every <a href=\"https:\/\/scholars.sil.org\/sites\/scholars\/files\/gary_f_simons\/preprint\/wisconsin_symposium.pdf\">three months<\/a> a decade ago to one <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/proceedings\/index.php\/PLSA\/article\/view\/4532\/4126\">every 40 days<\/a> in 2019 \u2013 meaning nine languages die a year.<\/p>\n<p>The UN\u2019s culture agency, Unesco, says predictions that half the world\u2019s languages will have died out by the end of the century <a href=\"https:\/\/social.desa.un.org\/issues\/indigenous-peoples\/international-decade-of-indigenous-languages-2022-2032\">are optimistic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jan\/07\/cultural-identity-saving-worlds-endangered-languages-activists-online-tools-rohingya-igbo-angika\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With half of all languages predicted to die out in decades, activists are turning to online tools to preserve themEvery year, the world loses some of its 7,000 languages. Parents stop speaking them to their children, words are forgotten and communities&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":942,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[401,71,615,59,62,1758,3221,1967,400,85,299,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-culture","category-education","category-global-development","category-india","category-language","category-language-resources","category-languages","category-nigeria","category-rohingya","category-science","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/942"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68785,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68784\/revisions\/68785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}