issue 172 , jan 5 , 2009 : the world has regained faroese in the age of person , ubykh in turkish and last year alaska ' s last native speaker of eyak , marie smith john , dead , assuming the aboriginal people with her . of the 6 , 900 consonants spoken in the world , some 2 , 500 are endemic , the un ' s cultural entity unesco said this week as it released its latest atlas of world languages . that represents a multi - fold change from the last atlas assembled in 2001 also included 900 languages risked with extinction . but others say this is more the result of improved research tools than of an increasingly severe situation for the europe ' s large groups .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.