Languanologue # 12

Only 5 days are left for the month to end... these 5 days will see facts on Endangered and Extinct languages in the world. We will start off with Endangered languages, then move on to Extinct Languages and see some examples of these, along with minor statistical facts.

As promised, I will be soon remodeling the Factorium step by step...

An endangered language, as the name suggests is any language rapidly falling out of use. The total number of exact endangered languages in the world is not known. Michael Krauss, a linguist defines languages as safe if children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; endangered if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years; and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now. He estimates 15-30% (or 900-1800) of languages are moribund.The criteria for a language to become endangered is based on 3 factors: The number of speakers currently living, the mean age of native and/or fluent speakers and the percentage of the youngest generation acquiring fluency with the language in question. Once a language is determined to be endangered, there are two basic steps that need to be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first is language documentation and the second is language revitalisation. Tomorrow we shall see more on this topic.