People are always discussing the world’s most widely spoken languages, and there is much talk about the global influence of English, Chinese, and Spanish in particular, but what about the world’s smallest languages?
The impact of globalisation on language has left many smaller tongues under the threat of extinction, and with language playing such an important role in both communication and culture we feel that they deserve a mention. With localization services becoming increasingly crucial to businesses, there is a question of whether minority languages are gathering up into major clusters.
Lost Tongues
According to a recent article in the ‘National Geographic’ called ’Vanishing Voices’, a language dies every two weeks, and by the turn of the next century only approximately half of today’s current 7000 languages will still be in existence.
Language Distribution
As major languages grow, smaller ones diminish. As globalisation begins to connect each of us together, and a shift towards modernity and urban dwelling continues, so too does the importance of common tongues and localization increasingly becomes centralized. Many are embracing global languages, such as; English, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, and Arabic, ahead of traditional voices, and thus younger generations are growing up with little knowledge of their ancestral language.
There are approximately 7000 languages in the world, which suggests that with an equal distribution each would have 1 million speakers. This is, however, of course not the case. Indeed according to ‘Vanishing Voices’;
“Seventy-eight per cent of the world’s population speaks the 85 largest languages, while the 3,500 smallest languages share a mere 8.25 million speakers.”
So What Are the World’s Smallest Languages?
Trying to determine the World’s smallest languages is actually rather complex, with there being some debate as to when a language is in fact dead. Some say that a language is dead when no-one is left speaking it, but others suggest it is dead when only one speaker remains, and thus communication is impossible.
A study by Oxford University in 2011 concluded that there were 160 languages with less than ten speakers. They embarked on a mission to help aid the survival of one in particular.
Dusner – 3 speakers
Dusner is a seriously endangered Indonesian tribal language, which was nearly wiped out when the only three fluent speakers were all injured in natural disasters. Oxford University embarked on a project in 2011 to document the language and thus preserve it in history. It is thought that the language died out as Malay was considered more important, and thus children were not taught the language.
Other tongues on the ‘smallest language list’ include;
Chamicuro – 8 people (2008) – Peru
Dumi – 8 people (2007) – Nepal
Ongota/Birale – 6 people (2008)- Ethiopia
Liki (Moar) -5 people (2007) – Indonesia
Tanema – 4 people (2008) – Solomon Islands
Njerep – 4 people (2007) – Nigeria
Chemehuevi – 3 people (2007) – United States
Lemerig – 2 people (2008) – Vanuatu
Kaixana – 1 person (2008) – Brazil
Taushiro – 1 person (2008) – Peru
Of course with most of these studies recorded in 2008, it is a possibility that some are now completely extinct, and new languages will have taken their place. Almost all of the world’s rarest languages are spoken by an aging population, as slowly they have been replaced by larger languages, and not passed on to the younger generations.
There is a belief among many that eventually the world will share one common tongue, and based on these statistics it does seem that we are gradually evolving in that direction. As powers of economy and politics shift, so too does language, and the impact it has on all of our lives and cultures is huge. Localization, in the future, may well be purely in terms of dialects and not minority tongues.