Endangered Languages

Languages are always changing but in many cases the life of a language ends. In many areas of the world, economic, military, social and other pressures are causing communities to stop speaking their traditional languages, and turn to other, typically more dominant, languages. This can be a social, cultural and scientific disaster because languages express the unique knowledge, history and worldview of their communities; and each language is a specially evolved variation of the human capacity for communication.

Today, there are about 6,500 languages and half of those are under threat of extinction within 50 to 100 years. Responses to this problem include local language maintenance and revival programmes, and language documentation. See the links below and right for information about documentation projects supported by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP).

Selection of our currently funded major projects