{"id":2303,"date":"2020-12-30T21:40:31","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T20:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eurotrad.com\/blog\/world-least-spoken-language\/"},"modified":"2024-01-23T12:25:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T11:25:15","slug":"world-least-spoken-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eurotrad.com\/en\/magazine\/world-least-spoken-language\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the least spoken language in the world?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The<strong> rarest language in the world<\/strong> is only spoken by five people. You might consider this a tragedy, but linguistic experts are all too aware that there is absolutely nothing exceptional about the death of a language.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, <strong>languages and dialects<\/strong> <strong>disappear all the time<\/strong>, and it\u2019s a phenomenon that\u2019s incredibly difficult to reverse. It has to do with the continuous evolution of the languages spoken on the planet.<\/p>\n<h2>Why do languages disappear?<\/h2>\n<p>The reasons languages disappear relate to the<strong> history of their communities<\/strong>. If a community suffers through<strong> war, an epidemic or a famine,<\/strong> its language may potentially end up at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n<p>Languages also go extinct due to (both military and cultural) <strong>colonisation<\/strong> by a much larger community experiencing a period of \u2018ascension\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t hard to picture <strong>new generations<\/strong> opting<strong> to neglect their traditional language<\/strong> in favour of their coloniser\u2019s language, or perhaps<strong> mixing the two languages<\/strong> until they dilute their native tongue, rendering it almost unrecognisable.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also worth remembering that countries are home to multiple<strong> dialects <\/strong>which disappear due to <strong>linguistic homogenisation<\/strong> at the hands of educational institutions. In Liguria, Lombardy and other regions of northern Italy, for example, younger generations are often unable to understand the local dialect, let alone speak it.<\/p>\n<h2>The least spoken language in the world is Z\u00e0para<\/h2>\n<p>Lots of languages are only spoken by<strong> a handful of people<\/strong>. These tend to be very ancient languages that have survived in isolated communities.<\/p>\n<p>Around 19 languages have become extinct in<strong> Cambodia <\/strong>since the beginning of the twentieth century due to the political and cultural invasion of the Khmer Rouge. Today, S\u2019aoch is spoken by just<strong> ten people<\/strong>, who refer to themselves as \u2018taowk\u2019, meaning \u2018worthless people\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The least spoken language in the world (according to data from 2001) is <strong>Z\u00e0para.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This language survives in a secluded region of<strong> Amazonia<\/strong> known as<strong> Pastaza<\/strong>, which falls within the state borders of Ecuador. Only<strong> five people<\/strong> still speak <strong>Z\u00e0para<\/strong>, which necessitated the intervention of an international organisation.<\/p>\n<p>In order to preserve this <strong>linguistic relic<\/strong>, <strong>UNESCO<\/strong> asked the five speaking elders of Z\u00e0para to<strong> teach the language to 20 children<\/strong>, as well as to <strong>glottologists<\/strong>, so that they could study its linguistic constructs and make a record of its grammar.<\/p>\n<h2>Can the world\u2019s least spoken languages be saved?<\/h2>\n<p>As demonstrated by the initiative launched by UNESCO, it is possible to try to save the world\u2019s least spoken languages. The first measures put in place to avoid the total disappearance of the world\u2019s least spoken languages include <strong>recording<\/strong> and <strong>archiving<\/strong> audio materials, distributing them and studying linguistic traces left by languages in danger of extinction. <strong>Institutions<\/strong> have also been founded to safeguard international linguistic heritage. In some cases, the strategy has worked. <strong>Hawaiian<\/strong> was once an endangered language, but is now considered a<strong> \u2018revitalised language\u2019<\/strong>. <strong>Hebrew and Maori <\/strong>have also experience a similar revival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rarest language in the world is only spoken by five people. You might consider this a tragedy, but linguistic experts are all too aware that there is absolutely nothing exceptional about the death of a language. In fact, languages and dialects disappear all the time, and it\u2019s a phenomenon that\u2019s incredibly difficult to reverse. It has to do with the continuous evolution of the languages spoken on the planet. Why do languages disappear? The reasons languages disappear relate to the history of their communities&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The world\u2019s least-spoken language | Eurotrad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The rarest language in the world is only spoken by five people, but there are lots of other languages that are also at risk of extinction.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurotrad.com\/en\/magazine\/world-least-spoken-language\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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