A new study has found that the world’s linguistic diversity has declined dramatically over the course of history, with nearly half of all living languages now at risk of extinction. According to the research, between 30,000 and more than 75,000 languages may have existed worldwide during the first millennium BCE, compared with an estimated 7,500 living languages today.
The study, published in the journal Science, was conducted by researchers from the United States and Spain. Using mathematical models alongside anthropological, linguistic, and demographic data, the team examined changes in global linguistic diversity over a 12,000-year period, from the end of the last Ice Age to the present.
The findings suggest that global linguistic diversity likely reached its peak between the first millennium BCE and the first millennium CE, when humanity spoke tens of thousands of languages. Since then, however, the number of languages has steadily declined over the centuries.
The researchers identify the expansion of large ancient empires and, more recently, European colonialism as the primary drivers of this decline. They argue that the concentration of political and cultural power led many local languages to gradually be replaced by more dominant ones.
Claire Bowern, a professor of linguistics and anthropology at Yale University and one of the study’s lead authors, said languages hold profound value for human societies because they preserve knowledge, memories, identity, and cultural connections. She emphasized that languages also serve as an invaluable resource for researchers seeking to understand human history, ways of life, and patterns of thought.
According to Bowern, languages can reveal information about where people lived, what they ate, how they organized their societies, and what they considered important during different historical periods. She described language as “a window into the human mind” and stressed that preserving languages is essential to understanding both the past and humanity’s cultural diversity.
Over the course of history, numerous language families emerged, and writing systems eventually developed. The oldest known examples of writing date back to the fourth millennium BCE with the Sumerian cuneiform script in Mesopotamia. Independent writing systems later developed in Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica.
Damian Blasi, the study’s lead author and a cognitive scientist and evolutionary anthropologist, said many people today have little appreciation of the extraordinary level of cultural and linguistic diversity that existed thousands of years ago. According to him, humanity lived in a far more linguistically diverse world until relatively recently.
To estimate the number of languages spoken at the beginning of the Holocene, the researchers analyzed data from 171 hunter-gatherer societies across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. They then compared the sizes of ethnic and linguistic groups with estimates of the global population to calculate the likely number of languages during different historical periods.
Bowern noted that historical records alone are insufficient to determine precisely how many languages existed in ancient times. As a result, the researchers developed a model that simulates long-term changes in linguistic diversity by examining the relationship between languages and human societies.
According to the study, around 12,000 years ago humans lived in small, dispersed communities before the emergence of agriculture, urbanization, and complex civilizations. At that time, people likely spoke between 4,500 and 6,200 languages. As populations expanded and agriculture spread, however, the number of languages increased significantly.
The researchers argue that the emergence of settled communities created favorable conditions for the development and expansion of local languages. Population growth and the establishment of permanent settlements enabled more human groups to preserve and develop their own distinct languages.
Throughout history, many languages have disappeared for a variety of reasons. Languages such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, and Etruscan no longer have native speakers, while several ancient Egyptian and Chinese languages, as well as some African languages, have met a similar fate.
According to the researchers, a language may become extinct because its speakers disappear or because it is abandoned in favor of another language. In some cases, older languages gradually evolved into new ones. For example, after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Latin evolved into languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish.
The study also highlights the role of colonial policies in reducing linguistic diversity. In many regions, colonial powers restricted or prohibited the use of Indigenous languages while imposing their own languages, contributing to the decline or extinction of many local tongues.
Bowern concluded by warning that roughly 90 percent of the world’s population now speaks just 10 percent of the world’s languages. As a result, a large proportion of the world’s living languages have relatively few speakers and face a serious risk of extinction.
Writer:Salima Aryaei
