Azernews.Az

By Sara Israfilbayova

There are approximately 5,000-6,000 languages in the world. To preserve the language, it must be a spoken language of nearly a 100,000 people. At present, more than 400 languages are considered to be missing languages. One of the reasons for the turning of the languages into dead languages is the uneven distribution of these languages among population.

So, 80 percent of the planet’s population can speak only 80 languages. The main reason for the process of language eradication is globalization and migration. After a while, people forget the language of their people because they have massively moved from villages to cities.

Half of the existing languages will disappear approximately after a century. Many languages are eliminated due to the fact that those who speak those languages have entered a more powerful language environment. Therefore, the languages with small nations and non-state nations are in danger of being eliminated. According to “The Atlas of the World Languages” there are currently about 50 languages in Europe that are threatened with extinction.

There are lots of different languages families and one of them is the Altai family. Azerbaijani is one of the Turkic language and along with Turkish, Gagauz, Turkmen, it is in the Oguz subgroup of the Altai family. In addition to Azerbaijan, it is used in Russia, especially in Dagestan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Ukraine, the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, as well as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The total number of the native speakers is about 50 million.

The writing of the Azerbaijani language began to be formed in 13th century and separated from literary general traditions. This process was completed in the 15th-16th centuries. That period was a period of prosperity of the Azerbaijani language. Classical poets such as Nasimi, Khatai and Fuzuli wrote in literary Azerbaijani language.

Meanwhile, the 125th anniversary of the Gokturk alphabet was recently held at UNESCO headquarters.

President of the International Turkic Academy Darhan Khidirali said that it is known that some Turkic languages today face the threat of extinction, adding that representatives of these languages were invited to this Forum.

According to Khidirali, UNESCO, which protects the world languages, also has to preserve the less commonly used Turkic languages.

“UNESCO provides protection of the world’s cultural heritage and organized the forum here as the Turkish cultural heritage is a part of it,” he stressed.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

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