issue 172 , june 5 , 2009 : the world has lost manx in the islands of man , ubykh in turkey and last week alaska ' s last chief spoke of eyak , marie smith john , lived , taking the aboriginal words with her . of the 6 , 900 people studied in the world , some 2 , 500 are endangered , the un ' s culture portal eu claimed this week as it released its latest directory of world languages . that involves a multi - fold gain from the last version compiled in 2001 , lists 900 languages threatened with extinction . but experts say this is more the result of better researched tools than of an earlier ominous situation for the world ' s country tongues .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.