Almost one quarter of the world's languages is threatened by extinction.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge in England concluded that economic growth and expansion causes small populations to abandon their native languages to cope with changes in their economy.

These populations have an urge to favor the dominant regional language.

Like Us on Facebook

Dr. Tatsuya Amato, a co-author of the study, said they used the criteria for endangered species to gauge the different languages of the world.

Dr. Amato and his colleagues from the university's Department of Zoology said there were three risk factors that primarily affect language extinction.

First is a small population size. Next is a small geographical habitat and last is the population change or the decline in the number of speakers.

Guided by these factors, researchers found out that the more successful a region is, the faster the language declines or is abandoned by its speakers.

Researchers explain that whenever an economy develops, one language comes to dominate the nation in its political and educational spheres.

Due to this, people are forced to use this dominant language because they don't want to be left out, both in the economic and political sense.

Dr. Amato noted that everyone has the right to choose what language to speak. Preserving a dying language, however, is also important.

Dr. Amato added that preserving a dying language will help a country maintain its human cultural diversity.

Some of the languages most at risk are The "Upper Tanana" spoken by the indigenous people from Eastern Alaska. The study found out there are only 24 speakers of this language.

Another is the "Wichita" language spoken by Native Americans from the North American Plains. There is only one speaker of the language left alive.

The team said that in this increasingly globalized world, there should be immediate action taken to maintain the language diversity.

It published its work in the September 3 edition of the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 

TagsUniversity of Cambridge, Researchers, Language, One Quarter, extinction, Threatened, Progress