There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world today.
More than half of the world's languages have no written form.
Half of the languages spoken in the world today are predicted to disappear during this century.
There are 2,000 languages spoken in Africa.
80% of African languages have no written form.
Fewer than 10% of the world's languages can be considered entirely safe from endangerment.
Most people in the world are bilingual or multilingual.
A language dies every 14 days.
Half of the world's languages are spoken in just eight countries.
96% of the world's languages are spoken by just 4% of the population.
Over 10% of the world's languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea.
In 1991, there were 181 languages that had fewer than 10 speakers.
Over 80% of the languages spoken in the United States are endangered.
Over 90% of the languages spoken in Siberia are endangered.
There are over 100 languages spoken in the United States today.
Half of the world's languages are spoken in Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Only 4% of the world's languages come from Europe.
There are over 200 endangered or recently extinct languages in Australia.
What Can You Say in One Word?
More of these are distributed throughout the site, in the trivia section of hotspot pages.
Barrkmulbardme means 'hopping male Black Wallaroo' in Kune (Australia, 1,511 speakers, NCA hotspot)
Kalq-ngart means a 'barb for a spear made from a stingray spine' in Yir-Yoront (Australia, 15 speakers, NCA hotspot)
Minh-pirri means 'a deceased cousin's sibling on one's mother's side' in Yir-Yoront (Australia, 15 speakers, NCA hotspot)
Thurrm means 'a fence of brush across a wallaby's path' in Yir-Yoront (Australia, 15 speakers, NCA hotspot)
Chary means 'a five-year-old, castrated, domesticated reindeer that can be ridden' in Tofa (Russia, 35 speakers, CSI hotspot)
Di'nisbaas means 'I'm in the process of driving a vehicle into something and getting stuck' in Navajo (U.S., 178,000 speakers, SOK hotspot)
Adding the suffix m to a noun that can have a smell creates a verb "to smell of x"; on a noun that has a taste, it means to taste like x; for a body part, it means to feel pain in that part; for animate nouns, it means to feel love for that entity in Evenk (China, Russia and Mongolia, 29,000 speakers, ESI hotspot).
Artyshtaar means 'to burn juniper as incense for religious (animistic) purposes' in Tuvan (Siberia, 280,000 speakers, CSI hotspot)
Aimerpok means 'to visit and expect food' in Aleut (America and Russia, 500 speakers, ESI hotspot)
Ch'anchay means 'to chew noisily' in Quechua (Peru, 500,000 monolinguals, CSA hotspot)
Gvprtskvni means 'you peel us' in Georgian (Georgia, 4.2 million speakers, CAU hotspot)
Kwëtamàlsi means 'now you know how it feels!' in Lenape (US, recently extinct, SOK hotspot)
Nempeyveescamoo means 'to do something correctly' in Lengua (Paraguay, 6,705 speakers, SSA hotspot)
Sound Bites
Most of the world's knowledge of plants and ecosystems is not written down-it only exists as oral knowledge.
