Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA03220 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Jun 2001 21:30:21 +0100 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:14:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Dave Gross <dave@eorbit.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: World Language Losses at a Glance Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0106181411230.5108-100000@boojiboy.eorbit.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
This piece has been snipped from an AP sidebar:
Snapshots of language losses worldwide
--North America: Eighty percent of the 260 native languages still spoken in
the United States and Canada aren't being learned by children, one reason
for language loss. Eyak, native to the coast of Alaska's Prince William
Sound, has one remaining speaker.
--South America: Hundreds of languages died as a result of the Spanish
conquest. About 80 percent of the continent's remaining 640 languages are
spoken by fewer than 10,000 people each; 27 face extinction. Many languages
from the Amazon region have fewer than 500 speakers, including Arikapu,
which has six.
--Africa: In the birthplace of nearly one-third of the world's languages,
54 are believed dead, with another 116 nearing extinction.
--Asia: More than half of Asia's native languages have fewer than 10,000
speakers each, although 3 billion people, or half the world's population,
live on the continent.
--Australia: About 90 percent of its 250 aboriginal languages face
extinction.
--Europe: Nearly 90 percent of Russians speak Russian, the language
enforced during the Soviet era. Consequently, most of the country's 100
other native languages, nearly all of them Siberian tongues, are near
extinction, including Udihe.
------
Source: Worldwatch Institute.
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jun 18 2001 - 21:34:11 BST