Handwritten educational notes and charts on Nigerian language and numeracy skills for students’ learning.
Around 3,000 of the world’s 7,000 languages face extinction, with one disappearing every 40 days, according to UNESCO. Efforts to save these endangered tongues highlight the cultural, historical, and communal loss tied to their decline. Activists like Nigeria’s Tochi Precious and India’s Amrit Sufi are leading grassroots initiatives to document languages such as Igbo and Angika through tools like Wikitongues, creating videos, dictionaries, and online resources. Similarly, a newly developed script is being used to educate children and preserve cultural identity in Rohingya refugee camps. However, stigma, limited formal use, and societal preferences for dominant languages, such as English or Hindi, present challenges. Despite the obstacles, campaigners emphasize that, with community dedication, languages can thrive again, as seen with Igbo, which was once predicted to vanish by 2025.
Source: The Guardian