Evolution of communication

摘要

Every 14 days a language dies. It is estimated that by 2100 more than half of the nearly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth — many of them not yet recorded — may disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the environment and the human brain. Nearly 6 per cent of the world's languages have at least a million speakers and account for 94 per cent of the world's population. In contrast, the remaining 94 per cent of languages are spoken by only 6 per cent of people. More than 450 languages have been designated as "nearly extinct", defined as having a speaker population of 50 or less.