The number of indian languages declared as endangered language by unesco as stated in nep-2020 is

With 196 of its languages listed as endangered, India, a nation with great linguistic diversity, tops the UNESCO’s list of countries having maximum number of dialects on the verge of extinction. HT Image India is closely followed by the US which stands to lose 192 languages and Indonesia, where 147 are in peril. The facts were revealed in the latest Atlas of World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing unveiled by the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO on the eve of International Mother Language Day on Saturday. The atlas classifies around 2,500 of the 6,000 languages spoken worldwide as endangered. It further adds that nearly 200 languages have fewer than 10 speakers and 178 others have between 10 and 50 speakers. It reveals that over 200 languages used in the world have died out over the last three generations, 538 are critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe. “The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it,” UNESCO Director-General Kochiro Matsuura said. The language of Manx in the Isle of Man died in 1974 with the death of Ned Maddrell while Eyak in Alaska met its demise last year when Marie Smith Jones passed away.

This week the Guardian reported that the last two fluent speakers of the This poignant story got us thinking about the number of endangered languages in the World. To get to the bottom of this we turned to UNESCO provide a classification system to show just how 'in trouble' the language is: • Vulnerable - most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home) • Definitely endangered - children no longer learn the language as a 'mother tongue' in the home • Severely endangered - language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves • Critically endangered - the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently • Extinct - there are no speakers left This graph shows the number of speakers in each of the languages (by size of the box representing the language) and then each language is grouped under the classification of how vulnerable it is: The full images is at Finally, here is the full list of languages in danger and there is even more detail in the The UNESCO provide an Data summary SOURCE: UNESCO South Italian 7500000 Vulnerable Sicilian 5000000 Vulnerable Low Saxon 4800000 Vulnerable Belarusian 4000000 Vulnerable Lombard 3500000 Definitely endangered Romani 3500000 Definitely endangered Yiddish (Israel) 3000000 Definitely endangered Gondi 2713790 Vulnerable Limburgian-Ripuarian 260...

When we lose a language, a community loses its unique vision- its history and culture, we lose the local perspectives and stories. It is tragic that, with loss of their mother tongue, people find themselves unable to speak their first language. It is an irreplaceable loss. In this regard, this report presents a significant contribution and an important step in the preservation of Indian languages. The report highlights the scale of linguistic diversity in the country and the role it plays in empowering communities, including women, the youth, persons with disabilities, displaced and elderly persons. The two-day event held at IGNCA, New Delhi, also hosted an interactive session with writers, linguists, experts, educators, and other relevant stakeholders. It was followed by a cultural programme including live music performances, poetry recitation in various mother languages, and a webinar on “Using Technology for Multilingual Learning: Challenges and Opportunities”- which is the global theme of this year’s celebration.

Premium ‘There are 600 potentially endangered languages in India… each dead language takes away a culture system’ In the interview, Ganesh Devy spoke about the dying and dead languages of India, how some languages gain popularity while others remain marginalised, and the impact of colonisation on the language system of India. Click on the image for a larger view of the language tree When renowned literary critic and activist Ganesh Narayan Devy set out to map the linguistic diversity of India, he had no inkling he would encounter languages that are barely known in the states in which they are spoken. Among his interesting discoveries were — 200 words describing snow in the Himalayan region alone, an old form of Portuguese spoken in villages close to Mumbai, a form of Japanese spoken in parts of Gujarat, and a language from Myanmar that is popular in the islands of Andaman. Devy, who documented 780 Indian languages while conducting the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2010, also, shockingly, found that 600 of these languages were dying. He added close to 250 languages in India had already died over the past 60 years. Ganesh Devy When a language dies, as Devy notes, “a unique way of looking at the world disappears”. In an exclusive interview with What are some of the dying and dead languages of India? According to UNESCO, any language that is spoken by less than 10,000 people is potentially endangered. In India, after the 1971 census, the government decided that any la...

A recent UNESCO report indicates that India has the largest number of endangered languages in the world. A matter of concern, besides the absolute numbers, is the distribution of these endangered languages across number of speakers. The languages under threat include both scheduled, non-scheduled as well as official languages of some of the states. Policies for protecting and promoting the entire range of endangered languages are needed if the linguistic diversity of India is to be preserved. The Economic and Political Weekly, published from Mumbai, is an Indian institution which enjoys a global reputation for excellence in independent scholarship and critical inquiry. First published in 1949 as the Economic Weekly and since 1966 as the Economic and Political Weekly, EPW, as the journal is popularly known, occupies a special place in the intellectual history of independent India. For more than five decades EPW has remained a unique forum that week after week has brought together academics, researchers, policy makers, independent thinkers, members of non-governmental organisations and political activists for debates straddling economics, politics, sociology, culture, the environment and numerous other disciplines. First published in 1949 as the Economic Weekly and since 1966 as the Economic and Political Weekly, EPW, as the journal is popularly known, occupies a special place in the intellectual history of independent India. For more than five decades EPW has remained a uni...

The interactive digital version of the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger provides updated data about approximately 2,500 endangered languages around the world and can be continually supplemented, corrected and updated, thanks to contributions from its users. It enables searches according to several criteria, and ranks the endangered languages that are listed according to five different levels of vitality: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct. Some of the data are especially worrying: out of the approximately 6,000 existing languages in the world, more than 200 have become extinct during the last three generations, 538 are critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe. For example, the Atlas states that 199 languages have fewer than ten speakers and 178 others have 10 to 50. Among the languages that have recently become extinct, it mentions Manx (Isle of Man), which died out in 1974 when Ned Maddrell fell forever silent, Aasax (Tanzania), which disappeared in 1976, Ubykh (Turkey) in 1992 with the demise of Tevfik Esenç, and Eyak (Alaska, United States of America), in 2008 with the death of Marie Smith Jones. As UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura stressed, “The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it – from poems and l...