Indigenous Languages are Dying in Australia

Globalization is an interesting phenomenon — on one hand, it makes the world accessible to everyone. On the other? Entire cultures being wiped out by Coca-cola, McDonald’s, Hollywood and everything else from the western world. That’s what’s happening in Australia, for instance. The Languages of the aborigines are vanishing like wildfire, giving way to ‘G’Day Mate’ and other cliche Aussie sayings.

Here’s an alarming statistic: Of the 6992 distinct languages worldwide, one is vanishing every two weeks. And they’re not just dying in Australia — South and North America are seeing their aboriginal languages dying quickly as well, and many are on the verge of distinction as only a handful of people in the world speak them. English is taking over as the universal language and while that’s not a bad thing for those of us who speak it, it’s sad to see age-old native tongues become lost forever.