National Geographic feature on “Vanishing Languages”

National Geographic “Vanishing Languages”

I am fascinated and a bit horrified by the process of language extinction described in this article. The parallels with biodiversity loss are obvious and by-and-large appropriate, but I also think that there is something particularly fascinating and tragic about language extinction. It seems as though we are headed towards a world with fewer languages, and it is hard to know if this is a loss or not, even as the loss to the ‘last speakers’ is undeniable.