20/02/2026
Languages, with their complex implications for identity, communication, social integration, education and development, are of strategic importance for people and planet. Yet, due to globalization processes, they are increasingly under threat, or disappearing altogether. When languages fade, so does the world’s rich tapestry of cultural diversity. Opportunities, traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking and expression, valuable resources for ensuring a better future, are also lost.
Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. UNESCO estimates that there are 8,324 languages, spoken or signed. Out of these, around 7,000 languages are still in use. Only a few hundred languages have genuinely been given a place in education systems and the public domain, and less than a hundred are used in the digital world.
Multilingual and multicultural societies exist through their languages, which transmit and preserve traditional knowledge and cultures in a sustainable way.
