UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger

As mentioned in the learning café, the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger contains a comprehensive guide to the thousands of endangered languages around the world, including those in Canada and British Columbia.

The Atlas is described on the UNESCO site as:

“……presented on the eve of International Mother Language Day (21 February), enables searches according to several criteria, and ranks the 2,500 endangered languages that are listed according to five different levels of vitality: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct.”

The interactive map and statistics page are easy to navigate. Most of the available information appears to rely on census data, which is in some cases dated and comes with the usual set of limitations related to census taking. However, being able to compare data on issues facing indigenous languages around the world is quite useful when discussing languages issues related to Canadian First Nations.

And who knew there was actually an International Mother Languages Day?!?!