Endangered languages are languages that wouldn’t exist any longer, much like endangered species of plants or animals. Languages are considered to be endangered when parents are no longer teaching the language to their children and are not using it actively in everyday life. A language is considered to nearly disappear when it is spoken by only a few elderly native speakers.

The world faces enormous challenges in order to protect different kinds of languages. Of the more than 6,912 languages, half may be in danger of disappearing in the next several decades.