issue 172 , march 5 , 2009 : the world has lost cornish in the isle of lewis , ubykh in anatolia and second decade russia ' s last fluent speak of eyak , marie smith williams , died , taking the local language with her . of the 6 , 900 language spoken in the world , some 2 , 500 are extinction , the union ' s cultural agency unesco announced this week as it released its latest atlas of canadian languages . that represents a multi - fold increase from the last atlas released in 2001 which listed 900 languages threatened with elimination . but experts argue this is more the result of less research tools than of an increasingly dire situation for the region ' s many countries .
2,500 languages are in danger of extinction.