Today, Google released the results of its most ambitious language preservation project to date. The Endangered Languages Project houses information about more than 3,000 of the 7,000 still extant languages. Data for the project was provided by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), produced by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and The Institute for Language Information and Technology (The Linguist List) at Eastern Michigan University. The site also lists the many supporting organizations, now formalized as the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity. The Endangered Languages Project provides an online resource for language activists around the world and a reference point for sharing the latest updates on lesser-used and minority languages.

Google manager Siobhán Ní Chonchúir told the Irish Times that the project is “an important step to preserve what the elders know and to give the next generation a chance to learn from their heritage.” We could not agree more. As we have written in the past, “Of the 6,912 known living human languages, only 2,261 have writing systems.” Therefore, audio and video are tremendously important in studying and conserving these languages. In the coming week, Common Sense Advisory will release updated figures for the Availability Quotient and e-GDP of online languages. This year’s numbers show a new power being exerted by a “long tail effect” of languages. More.