The

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' was an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

s. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after a brief period of overlap before being transferred to an online-only publication.

History

In 1992, the International Congress of Linguists (CIPL) meeting in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

discussed the topic of endangered languages, as a result of which it formed the Endangered Languages Committee. It held an international meeting also in 1992 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to place the topic before the world and initiate action. The meeting was considered important enough to come under the authority of

. At the instigation of Stephen Wurm the committee resolved to create a research center, the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages (ICHEL) and to publish the UNESCO ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' based on the data it collected, the title being derived from that of the ''Red Book of Endangered Species''. Shigeru Tsuchida was to start the research center. It began in 1994 at the University of Tokyo with Tasaku Tsunoda as its director. Meanwhile, the initial reports on endangered languages had already been collected and submitted to UNESCO by regional experts in 1993. These have since been turned over to ICHEL, which created a website to enable regularly updates to be made available promptly. In February 2009, UNESCO launched an online edition of the ''Atlas of Endangered Languages'' which covers the whole world, contains much more information than previous printed editions and offers the possibility to users to provide online feedback, in view of its constant updating.

Classification

The UNESCO list has 6 categories of endangerment: *

Extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

: There are no speakers left. The Atlas presumes extinction if there have been no known speakers since the 1950s. *

Critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

: The youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently. * 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. * Definitely endangered: Children no longer learn the language as a mother tongue in the home. * Vulnerable: Most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g. home). * Safe / Not Endangered: Is spoken by all generations and intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted. These languages are not included in the Atlas as they are not endangered.

References

External links

UNESCO World Atlas of Languages
* *{{Cite web , title=Endangered Languages , url=https://ciplnet.com/endangered-languages/ , access-date=2025-02-10 , website=CIPL , language=en-US Endangered languages projects UNESCO 1994 works 2010 works