issue 172 , march 5 , 2009 : the world has lost manx in the isles of lewis , ubykh in anatolia and last year alaska ' s last native speak of eyak , marie smith jones , died , taking the aboriginal language with her . of the 6 , 900 languages spoken in the world , some 2 , 500 are obsolete , the un ' s literary agency eu said this weeks as it uploaded its newest encyclopedia of world languages . that represented a multi - fold increase from the earlier catalog compiled in 2001 also documented 900 languages threatened with extinction . but experts say this is more the result of better research tools than of an increasingly dire condition for the world ' s many tongues .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.