Practice question · Estimate
Roughly what percentage of the world’s languages do linguists class as endangered? Set the slider.
Estimate on a scale from 0% (0) to 100% (100).
Hints
- It is a large minority, not a sliver.
- Nearly half of all languages may lose their last speakers this century.
Show the answer
40 (answers within ±12 count)
Why
Around 40 percent. Every disappearance closes an archive: unwritten languages carry oral history, taxonomy, and kin systems that vanish with the last speaker, a preview of the source-loss problem all history faces.
Practise Language and Culture
The app has 7 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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