Every two weeks, a language disappears in silence. No press releases, no international alerts. Just the last speaker passing away, taking with them millennia of knowledge, stories, and ways of seeing the world that no one else possesses.

According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, more than 2,500 languages are currently classified as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. Of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth, half could be gone by the end of this century if nothing changes.

But here is what rarely gets said: some of these languages are surviving. Some are even experiencing a renaissance. And you can contribute to that revival, simply by learning them.

In this article, we have selected five languages classified as endangered by UNESCO that Targumi allows you to start learning today. Five languages with living communities, active revitalization movements, and an unmatched cultural richness.

Why Do Languages Disappear?

Before diving into our list, a word on causes. The death of a language is never accidental. It always follows the same pattern: colonization, economic marginalization, forced schooling in a dominant language, stigmatization of native speakers.

Children learn that their mother tongue is "useless." Grandparents stop transmitting it to "protect" their descendants from discrimination. Within a single generation, the chain breaks.

Linguist David Crystal, in his landmark work Language Death (Cambridge University Press, 2000), estimates that a language loses its vitality when fewer than 30% of the youngest generation speaks it fluently. Below that threshold, natural transmission collapses.

But technology, social media, and a growing global awareness have changed the equation. Languages once considered doomed are resurging. Irish is the most spectacular example. And you will see that the other four languages on our list are following the same path.

1. Nahuatl - The Language of the Aztecs, Still Alive in Mexico

How Many Speakers?

Nahuatl is the most widely spoken indigenous language in Mexico, with approximately 1.7 million speakers concentrated primarily in the states of Puebla, Guerrero, Hidalgo, and Veracruz. This figure, established by Mexico's National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) in 2020, conceals a darker reality: the vast majority of these speakers are over 40. Among those under 20, transmission has become fragmented.

What Is Its UNESCO Status?

UNESCO classifies several Nahuatl variants between "vulnerable" and "endangered." Central Nahuatl, the most widely spoken, is in a state of vulnerability. Other variants such as Michoacan Nahuatl are endangered, and Pochutec is critically endangered or already extinct.

Why Is It Threatened?

Since the Spanish Conquest of the 16th century, Nahuatl has been systematically marginalized. Throughout the 20th century, Mexico's national education policies imposed Spanish as the sole language of instruction. Speaking Nahuatl in certain regions meant being labeled "Indian" in a derogatory sense, a stigma that pushed entire families to voluntarily abandon the language.

Rural exodus toward Mexico City and other major urban centers has deepened this rupture: younger generations who migrate adopt Spanish to integrate economically.

What Is Being Done to Save It?

Since the early 2000s, a Nahuatl renaissance movement has been organizing. INALI coordinates training programs for bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish teachers. Indigenous universities have been created in states with large Nahuatl-speaking populations. Online, content creators like "Yoltzi Nahuatl" on YouTube have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views with online lessons.

Nahuatl also benefits from a unique asset: its influence on Spanish and European languages. Words like chocolate (xocolatl), tomato (tomatl), avocado (ahuacatl), and coyote (coyotl) come directly from Nahuatl. This cultural recognition fuels pride and renewed interest.

Why Learn It?

Learning Nahuatl means accessing a worldview that the Aztecs developed over millennia of philosophy, poetry, and science. Concepts like nepantla (being between two worlds), tlamatiliztli (wisdom), or tlahzohtlaliztli (love as an act of protection) have no exact equivalents in European languages.

It is also a political act: every person who learns Nahuatl signals that this language has value, that it deserves to be passed on.

Learn Nahuatl on Targumi: Discover our Nahuatl courses

2. Quechua - The Language of the Inca Empire, Spoken from Colombia to Argentina

How Many Speakers?

With approximately 8 to 10 million speakers spread across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile, Quechua is one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in South America. In Peru, it has even held co-official language status alongside Spanish since 1975.

But Ethnologue (26th edition, 2023) records more than 40 Quechua dialectal variants, some of which are considered endangered. Fragmentation into mutually difficult-to-understand dialects complicates standardization and teaching.

What Is Its UNESCO Status?

UNESCO places several variants in the "vulnerable" category. Quechua in Chile and certain peripheral Andean variants are endangered. The major central variant, spoken in central Peru, remains the most vital.

Why Is It Threatened?

Spanish colonization shattered the chain of transmission among Andean elites. The association between Quechua and rural poverty led generations of families to prioritize Spanish as the language of social mobility. In cities like Lima or La Paz, speaking Quechua is still sometimes perceived as a marker of underdevelopment.

What Is Being Done to Save It?

Bolivia inscribed the recognition of 36 indigenous languages, including Quechua, in its 2009 constitution. Radio and television broadcasts entirely in Quechua have existed in Peru since the 1990s. Universities in Cusco and Ayacucho offer programs in Quechua. Social media has enabled the emergence of a generation of urban Quechua speakers proud of their heritage.

The Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, based in Cusco, has worked since 1953 on orthographic standardization to facilitate written instruction.

Why Learn It?

Quechua opens access to a culture that built one of the most complex empires in pre-Columbian history, capable of administering millions of people across thousands of kilometers of mountain terrain without alphabetic writing. Quechua knowledge of Andean ecosystems - medicinal plants, high-altitude farming practices - represents an irreplaceable scientific heritage.

Traveling in Peru or Bolivia with a few phrases of Quechua radically transforms the experience: highland communities receive you differently when they see you have made that effort.

Learn Quechua on Targumi: Discover our Quechua courses

3. Irish (Irish Gaelic) - The Most Spectacular Resurrection in Europe

How Many Speakers?

Irish has approximately 1.7 million people capable of speaking it at various levels in Ireland, and about 170,000 daily speakers. The Gaeltacht, the geographic areas where Irish remains the primary community language, brings together approximately 20,000 native speakers in counties Galway, Donegal, and Kerry.

But the official figures conceal an encouraging reality: the proportion of young Irish people learning the language at school is rising, and apps like Duolingo have propelled Irish to the top of the most-learned languages in the world relative to the size of its original community.

What Is Its UNESCO Status?

UNESCO classifies Irish as "vulnerable," which is actually an improvement compared to previous decades. Irish has also been an official language of the European Union since 2007, a major symbolic recognition.

Why Is It Threatened?

British colonization systematically dismantled Irish culture over centuries. The Great Famine (1845-1852) killed or forced the emigration of a large part of the rural Irish population, who were precisely the most likely to be native Irish speakers. In 1800, half the Irish population spoke Irish. By 1900, only 15% did.

The British school system banned instruction in Irish. Generations of children were physically punished for speaking their mother tongue.

What Is Being Done to Save It?

Since independence in 1922, the Irish state has invested heavily in revitalization. Irish is a compulsory subject in all primary and secondary schools. The TG4 television channel and RTE Radio na Gaeltachta broadcast exclusively in Irish. Gaelscoileanna (total Irish-immersion schools) are multiplying: they now educate more than 60,000 children outside the Gaeltacht.

The Irish-speaking online community is one of the most active for a regional language in Europe. Subreddits, Discord servers, viral hashtags like #IrishLanguageChallenge have attracted tens of thousands of young learners.

Why Learn It?

Irish is a window onto the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The Ulster Cycle epics, the monastic poems of the 7th century, the immrama (mythological ocean voyage narratives): no translation captures their music.

For people of Irish descent in the diaspora (more than 70 million worldwide), Irish is a profound identity connection. But beyond that, it is a language whose grammar - with its initial consonant mutations, its unique verbal constructions - trains the brain in radically different ways.

Learn Irish on Targumi: Discover our Irish courses

4. Guarani - The Best-Preserved Indigenous Language in South America

How Many Speakers?

With approximately 6 to 7 million speakers in Paraguay, Guarani is one of the rare indigenous languages in the Americas that has more speakers than the European-descended population in the country. In Paraguay, 90% of the population speaks Guarani, making it the only indigenous language in South America to hold co-official language status in a country that is not majority indigenous in its population.

But outside Paraguay, in the areas of Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia where Guarani communities once lived, the situation is very different. Ethnologue and UNESCO identify several Guarani variants as endangered or critically endangered.

What Is Its UNESCO Status?

Paraguayan Guarani is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO. Its co-official status gives it institutional protection that few indigenous languages possess. But Mby'a Guarani (spoken in Brazil and Argentina) is classified as endangered, and Chiriguano-Chane is critically endangered.

Why Is It Threatened?

The paradox of Guarani is fascinating: in Paraguay itself, the language is in relatively good health. But the rapid urbanization of the past thirty years has created pressure toward Spanish in cities like Asuncion. Urban middle classes sometimes associate Spanish with professional and social success.

Outside Paraguay, Guarani communities have faced the same pressures as other indigenous peoples: Amazon deforestation, forced displacement, cultural assimilation accelerated by agribusiness and extractivism.

What Is Being Done to Save It?

Paraguay established Spanish-Guarani bilingualism throughout its entire administration in 1992. Official documents, laws, and civil registry forms exist in Guarani. The Secretariat of Language Policies trains Guarani teachers. Radios and newspapers in Guarani operate across the country.

Guarani also benefits from remarkable cultural vitality: popular Paraguayan music routinely blends both languages, and young content creators use Guarani as a strong identity marker on social media.

Why Learn It?

Guarani is an agglutinative language with a structure very different from Indo-European languages: its words can be of fascinating complexity, encoding in a single term information that Spanish would express in an entire sentence. Its phonology, with its nasal vowels and tones, offers a unique auditory experience.

For travelers in South America, a few phrases of Guarani in Paraguay trigger an immediate warmth and hospitality. And for amateur linguists, Guarani is an extraordinary terrain of exploration for what human language can do.

Learn Guarani on Targumi: Discover our Guarani courses

5. Ewe - The Language of West Africa's Coastal Kingdoms

How Many Speakers?

Ewe is spoken by approximately 4 to 5 million people in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. It is one of the most important languages in the Kwa family (a branch of Niger-Congo). In Ghana, Ewe is one of eleven government languages. In Togo, approximately 22% of the population speaks it as a mother tongue.

What Is Its UNESCO Status?

Ewe appears in the "vulnerable" category of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Its situation is less critical than that of Nahuatl or certain Quechua variants, but the pressure of colonial languages (English in Ghana, French in Togo) is significant in urban centers.

Why Is It Threatened?

Ewe faces the classic pressure of colonial languages in post-independence African contexts. In Ghana, English remains the sole language of instruction in higher education. In Togo, French holds the same dominant position. Younger urban generations tend to prioritize the colonial language for access to skilled employment and higher education.

The geographic fragmentation of the Ewe community across three countries with different administrations also complicates standardization and the production of unified educational resources.

What Is Being Done to Save It?

The University of Ghana at Legon has offered Ewe studies programs for decades. Organizations like the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) have contributed to creating a standardized orthography and translating reference texts. The Ewe oral tradition - its tales, ceremonial songs, talking drum language - is gaining renewed appreciation through digital recordings.

On social media, Ghanaian and Togolese content creators use Ewe to reach their communities, particularly in rural areas where internet access is rapidly expanding.

Why Learn It?

Ewe is a three-tone tonal language whose mastery opens access to the entire Kwa family. It is also celebrated for the sophistication of its musical expression: the Ewe talking drum language (gankogui) can convey complete messages in tonal code, a form of millennial sonic cryptography.

Ewe culture has produced some of the most complex percussion traditions in the world, transmitted in Agbadza and Atsia ceremonies. Understanding Ewe means understanding the hidden grammar of these musics.

Learn Ewe on Targumi: Discover our Ewe courses

The Role of Technology in Linguistic Revitalization

For centuries, the death of languages seemed inevitable. Globalization was accelerating convergence toward a handful of dominant languages. Then the internet arrived, and something unexpected happened.

Social Media: New Life for Endangered Languages

TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram created something unimaginable thirty years ago: massive audiences for content in endangered languages. Creators in Nahuatl, Quechua, or Irish accumulate millions of views, reaching a generation that had never heard its ancestral language in a modern medium.

The effect is as much psychological as linguistic: when a young Mexican sees Nahuatl on TikTok, they stop associating it only with their grandparents. The language becomes cool, modern, desirable.

Learning Apps: Radical Democratization

Previously, revitalizing a language required expensive government programs and hard-to-access immersion schools. Today, Duolingo offers Navajo, Hawaiian, and Welsh. Platforms like Targumi allow people to learn Nahuatl, Quechua, or Ewe with native teachers, from anywhere in the world.

This democratization has a concrete effect: when thousands of learners begin requesting a language, searching for content, and spending money to learn it, this creates a new economic value for native speakers who can become teachers.

Artificial Intelligence: Risk or Opportunity?

Generative AI is ambivalent for endangered languages. On one hand, language models like ChatGPT are trained overwhelmingly on English and a few major languages, to the detriment of rare languages. On the other hand, projects like Mozilla's Common Voice collect voice recordings in dozens of endangered languages to create training data.

Researchers are working on machine translation systems for Quechua, Guarani, and Nahuatl. These tools, even imperfect, can help semi-competent speakers communicate and help learners consolidate their knowledge.

The Outside Learner: An Unexpected Actor in Preservation

Here is an idea that linguists are observing with increasing frequency: outside learners play an active role in revitalization. When a person with no direct connection to a community decides to learn Guarani or Quechua, several things happen.

First, it validates the language in the eyes of the native speakers themselves. If a German or Japanese person finds value in Ewe, it confirms that the language is worth something beyond immediate economic utility.

Second, it creates demand for resources: courses, content, teachers, books. An economy of the language develops, which can help maintain active speakers and fund documentation projects.

Finally, outside learners often become ambassadors. They talk about these languages to those around them, mention them on social media, participate in online communities that keep the language alive.

Conclusion: Your Learning Matters

It would be naive to pretend that learning an endangered language will save it by itself. A language's survival depends primarily on its native speakers and on the public policies that support it.

But your learning is not without significance. It is part of a larger ecosystem where every gesture counts: researchers who document, governments that legislate, parents who transmit, teachers who train, and learners from around the world who signal that these languages have value.

The five languages in this article - Nahuatl, Quechua, Irish, Guarani, Ewe - all share one thing: they are still alive, they have communities fighting to transmit them, and they are accessible to learning thanks to today's tools.

Each one carries a worldview you will find nowhere else. Each one will teach you something about what it means to be human in a particular context of our planet.

Whichever one you choose to learn, you will not regret it.

Start Your Journey Today

Targumi offers courses with native teachers for all the languages in this article. Small groups, certified progression, interactive lessons.

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Sources

  • UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger - Official classification of endangered languages by vitality level
  • Ethnologue, 26th edition (2023) - Data on speaker populations and language vitality worldwide
  • Crystal, David (2000). Language Death. Cambridge University Press - Academic reference on the mechanisms of language death
  • Endangered Languages Project - Collaborative database on endangered languages
  • National Institute of Indigenous Languages of Mexico (INALI), Catalogue of National Indigenous Languages, 2020
  • Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, Cusco, Peru