A Forgotten Wave of Extinction May Have Erased Thousands of Human Languages
Researchers used modeling and historical data to estimate that humanity once spoke more than 75,000 languages before a long decline to about 7,500 today.
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onlinemarketingscoops.comA Forgotten Wave of Extinction May Have Erased Thousands of Human Languages
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Study documents precipitous decline in number of languages
Researchers charted a major decline since the linguistic “golden age,” due to language replacement driven by factors such as the expansion of large empires in antiquity and European colonialism in the past several centuries.
Today, approximately 7,500 languages are used throughout the world, with English, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Spanish, Arabic and French being the most widely spoken... Humanity spoke 75 thousand languages until a thousand years ago, which disappeared en masse - ΙΝΑΦΤΕΜΟΠΟΡΙΚΙ
Did Humanity Once Speak Tens of Thousands of Languages?
Humanity may once have spoken far more languages than exist today, according to a new study published in Science. Researchers estimate that the number of spoken and signed languages may have reached as many as 20,000 to 75,000 during a period of exceptional linguistic diversity before the expansion of large empires dramatically reduced the world’s language variety. The study argues that agriculture initially encouraged languages to multiply by c…
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