How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)

by David Goldman

Of the more than six thousand languages now spoken on the planet, two become extinct each week, and by most estimates half will fall silent by the end of the century.6 A United Nations report claims that nine-tenths of the languages now spoken will become extinct in the next hundred years.7 Most endangered languages have a very small number of speakers. Several are disappearing tribal languages spoken in the Amazon rainforest, the Andes Mountains, or the Siberian taiga. Perhaps a thousand distinct languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea, many by tribes of only a few hundred members. Eighteen languages have only one surviving speaker. It is painful to imagine how the world must look to these individuals. They are orphaned in eternity, wiped clean of memory, their existence reduced to the exigency of the moment.