Languages across South America to Africa and Australia are rapidly dying, according to the United Nations, with a spoken language disappearing every two weeks or less.
Even more surprisingly, 97 percent of the global population used a mere 4 percent of living languages.
This was the warning of the international organization’s statement released after the three-day U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which underlined that many out of the 6,000 currently existing oral languages have not been recorded yet and are on the brink of extinction as they are passed down by generations.
Canadian tribal chief Edward John then called for urgent action to revive indigenous languages, whose extinction, he believes will go unnoticed as the world concentrates on preserving cultural heritage sites.
"The priority focus that I hear from all of the experts is, create fluent speakers. That's what you need to do. How do you do it? That's the discussion taking place,” John said, speaking Thursday at the end of the conference among indigenous language experts at the U.N. headquarters.
He emphasized that while there has been massive attention on literacy, and developments of books, dictionaries, and other materials in indigenous tongues, there isn’t as much push toward fluency.
According to John, there is an urgent need for governments to commit to identifying their countries’ indigenous languages as well as the age and number of their speakers. A first-time global map can then be created, after which languages with fewer speakers will be revitalized and kept from turning extinct.
Smartphones and technology should be allies in teaching young people their native languages, John argued.
Ethnic Itelman Tatjana Degai, hailing from Kamchatka on the Pacific coast of Russia, echoed that the language of her people is severely endangered, with only five elderly speakers (all female and 70 years old) left.
"There are about 10 to 15 middle-aged speakers who grew up hearing the language but don't consider themselves speakers,” she lamented, adding the Itelman is taught in just one school, only for 40 minutes every week.
And it doesn’t stop there, Degai added, as most of the 40 out of the 47 recognized Russian indigenous peoples’ languages from the north, Siberia, and the Far East are on the verge of extinction as well.
Delegates specializing in indigenous languages are projected to gather at the New York headquarters to discuss the matter. Recommendations from the meeting will be presented to another meeting in May and the U.N. Economic and Social Council in July.
Accounting for around 80 percent of the world’s population are the 83 top spoken languages. A mere 0.2 percent of people around the globe, however, speak the 3,500 smallest languages.
