As of January 2025, numerous languages worldwide are classified as endangered, meaning they are at risk of falling out of use as their speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages.

Some examples of endangered languages include:

1. Ongota (Ethiopia)

• Region: Southern Ethiopia, near the Omo River.
• Speakers: Fewer than five speakers as of 2024.
• Status: Critically endangered, with most of the community having shifted to other local languages like Tsamai.
• Unique Facts: Ongota is an oral-only language, meaning it has no written form. Efforts to document it have been challenging because the remaining speakers are elderly.

2. Ainu (Japan)

• Region: Hokkaido Island and formerly parts of Russia (Sakhalin and Kuril Islands).
• Speakers: Very few native speakers remain, though there are efforts to teach it to younger generations.
• Status: Critically endangered.
• Unique Facts: Ainu is considered an isolate, meaning it has no known linguistic relatives. Japan has introduced revitalization programs, including cultural preservation projects, to encourage its use.

3. Chamicuro (Peru)

• Region: Northern Peru, in the San Martín region.
• Speakers: Fewer than 10 fluent speakers.
• Status: Critically endangered, with most of the community now speaking Spanish.
• Unique Facts: Chamicuro is also a written language with a dictionary, but its use has declined sharply as the younger generations have abandoned it.

4. Yagan (Chile)

• Region: Tierra del Fuego, southernmost Chile.
• Speakers: Cristina Calderón, who passed away in 2022, was the last fluent native speaker. Efforts are ongoing to document the language.
• Status: Critically endangered, possibly extinct.
• Unique Facts: Yagan is part of the Fuegian language family and has words with highly specific meanings, reflecting the maritime lifestyle of its speakers.

5. Njerep (Nigeria)

• Region: Nigeria, in the Mambila region near the Cameroon border.
• Speakers: Fewer than five elderly speakers, none of whom use it in daily life.
• Status: Nearly extinct.
• Unique Facts: Njerep is part of the Bantoid languages, a subgroup of the Niger-Congo family. Most of its community members have shifted to using neighboring languages like Mambila.

Unfortunately a language dies every two weeks. If this trend continues, half of the 7,000 languages spoken today could be lost by the end of this century.

According to UNESCO’s classifications, the degrees of language endangerment are:

• Vulnerable: Most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home).
• Definitely endangered: Children no longer learn the language as a mother tongue in the home.
• Severely endangered: The language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves.
• Critically endangered: The youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently.
• Extinct: There are no speakers left.

To learn more about endangered languages you can visit:

(not affiliated with GL)

UNESCO’s World Atlas of Languages. They provide detailed information on the status of languages worldwide and efforts to preserve them.