via Silicon Republic

Today, Google has launched the Endangered Languages Project in an effort to support language preservations through technology and collaboration, and native speakers or scholars of Irish Gaelic are invited to contribute to the available information.

There are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, but it has been estimated that only half of these will still be spoken in 2100.

Languages are at risk when they aren’t passed on to new generations, and the loss of a language can also mean the loss of valuable scientific and cultural information. In an effort to help native speakers and language experts pass on and preserve endangered languages, Google has launched the Endangered Languages Project, a website highlighting data from the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat).

The ELCat documents research into the world’s most threatened languages and, it is hoped that, sharing this online will encourage feedback from language communities and academics which can then be incorporated into the current data to ensure the information is up to date and comprehensive.

You can read the full article here.  Exciting to see that Google is also in the fight for linguistic preservation!