Evolution of communication

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.

One nearly extinct language is Kallawaya, which is spoken only by a group of itinerant healers living in Bolivia. It is a secret language dating back to before the Incas and is passed only from father to son or grandfather to grandson. For general conversation the Kallawaya people use the more common Quechua language, saving their secret language for discussion about the medicinal use of up to 600 herbs.

Amurdag is an indigenous Australian language with only one living speaker. He is working with linguists to document the tongue.

Nivkh, spoken by fewer than 300 people in Siberia, is unrelated to any other language. It contains 26 different ways of saying every number, depending on what is being counted.

An anthropological linguist has recently embarked on a year living with the Inughuit people of north-west Greenland to document their language and culture, which are at risk from global warming. The language, Inuktun, has never been fully written down and stories and traditions are passed down orally.

This language is one of the oldest and most pure Inuit dialects, but will possibly only survive for another 10–15 years before rising temperatures force the Inughuit to move.