21st century

===Linguistic diversity===
As of 2009, [[Ethnologue]] catalogued 6,909 living human languages.<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/ "Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060406012854/http://www.ethnologue.com/ |date=6 April 2006 }}. Retrieved 28 June 2007, {{ISBN|1-55671-159-X}}</ref> The exact number of known living languages will vary from 5,000 to 10,000, generally depending on the precision of one's definition of "language", and in particular, on how one classifies dialects.

Estimates vary depending on many factors, but the general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Between 50% and 90% of those will have become extinct by the year 2100.<ref name="Handbook2">{{cite book|last1=Austin|first1=Peter K|title=Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages|last2=Sallabank|first2=Julia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-88215-6|editor-last=Austin|editor-first=Peter K|chapter=Introduction|editor2-last=Sallabank|editor2-first=Julia}}</ref>

The [[List of languages by number of native speakers|top 20 languages]] spoken by more than 50 million speakers each, are spoken by 50% of the world's population. In contrast, many of the other languages are spoken by small communities, most of them with fewer than 10,000 speakers.<ref name="Handbook2" />