issue 172 , march 5 , 2009 : the universe has no cornish in the isle of man , ubykh in turkey and last year alaska ' s last native speaker of eyak , nancy jones williams , died , leaving the english speaker with her . of the 6 , 900 language represented in the universe , some 2 , 500 are extinct , the un ' s cultural service unesco said this week as it released its first index of world languages . that includes a multi - fold increase from the next atlas compiled in 2001 which listed 900 languages threat with extinction . but experts say this is more the effect of better research instruments than of an increasingly dire situations for the world ' s many tongues .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.