issue 172 , march 5 , 2009 : the world has lose manx in the isle of mann , ubykh in turkey and last year alaska ' s oldest native speaker of eyak , marie smith jones , died , returning the aboriginal language with her . of the 6 , 900 varieties spoken in the worldwide , some 2 , 500 are endangered , the un ' s cultural agency unesco said this week as it released its latest atlas of world nations . that represents a four - fold increase from the last atlas compiled in 2001 which listed 900 species danger with extinction . but experts say this is more the result of better research tools than of an increasingly difficult situation for the region ' s many tongues .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.