AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both aspects. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4.
ItalianizationItalianization (italianizzazione italjaniddzatˈtsjoːne; talijanizacija; italianisation; poitaljančevanje; Italianisierung; Italopoíisi) is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or assimilation. It is also known for a process organized by the Kingdom of Italy to force cultural and ethnic assimilation of the native populations living, primarily, in the former Austro-Hungarian territories that were transferred to Italy after World War I in exchange for Italy having joined the Triple Entente in 1915; this process was mainly conducted during the period of Fascist rule between 1922 and 1943.
ArabizationArabization or Arabisation (تعريب, ALA-LC) is the process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by the latter's gradual adoption of the Arabic language and assimilation into Arab culture or the fusion of local cultures with it. Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the Arab nationalist policies of some governments in modern Arab states toward non-Arab minorities, including Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, and Sudan.
Mayan languagesThe Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory. The Mayan language family is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas.
Ainu languageAinu (アイヌ・イタㇰ, Ainu-itak), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate with no academic consensus of origin. It is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Cherokee languageCherokee or Tsalagi (Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, dʒalaˈɡî ɡawónihisˈdî) is an endangered-to-moribund Iroquoian language and the native language of the Cherokee people. Ethnologue states that there were 1,520 Cherokee speakers out of 376,000 Cherokee in 2018, while a tally by the three Cherokee tribes in 2019 recorded ~2,100 speakers. The number of speakers is in decline. About eight fluent speakers die each month, and only a handful of people under the age of 40 are fluent.
Formosan languagesThe Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwanese indigenous peoples recognized by the government are about 2.3% of the island's population. However, only 35% speak their ancestral language, due to centuries of language shift.
Speaker typesWithin the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from an endangered language to a majority language, not all speakers acquire full linguistic competence; instead, speakers have varying degrees and types of competence depending on their exposure to the minority language in their upbringing.
Meitei languageMeitei (ˈmeɪteɪ; ; , romanised: "Meiteilon"), officially known as Manipuri (ˌmænᵻˈpʊəri, mʌ-; ; ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur as well as one of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, included in the 8th Schedule to the Indian Constitution. Native to the Meitei people, it is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in parts of neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Rosetta ProjectThe Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 AD; it is run by the Long Now Foundation. Its goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,500 languages. Some of these languages have fewer than one thousand speakers left. Others are considered to be dying out because language policy based on an official language is increasing the prevalence of major languages that are used as the medium of instruction in public schools and national media.
