issue 172 , march 5 , 2009 : the world has lost manx in the isle of man , ubykh in turkey and last year europe ' s last native leader of eyak , mary poor iii , died , assuming the same culture with her . of the 6 , 900 languages spoken in the world , some 2 , 500 are important , the un ' s cultural agency , said this week as it produced its latest atlas of world languages . that describes a multi - fold increase from the latest atlas compiled in 2001 which categorized 900 languages threatened with extinction . but experts said this is more the result of better research tool than of an evolving dire situation for the nation ' s many peoples .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.