The people of the world speak between 3,000 and 6,000 languages. A few native-language communities, like the Aymara and the Tswana, are large and robust, but most are small and fragile. Only 276 languages are spoken by a million or more people.
Languages seem to be disappearing faster than ever before.
This is alarming in itself, but, just as important, the consequent reduction of cultural diversity may threaten humanity's survival. Linguistic diversity relates to adaptational ideas about property, health care, food, children, power, and disputes. The loss of language diversity diminishes our ability to adapt because it decreases the pool of knowledge from which to draw. The existence or disappearance of languages has particular political and economic implications for native peoples themselves. Consider language-related politics in India, Belgium, Canada, Lithuania, and Estonia.