Languages of the U.S.A.

Have you ever wondered how many languages are spoken in the United States? I got distracted tonight reading this fascinating page from the Ethnologue. I think it's amazing how many languages are spoken in the U.S., but especially, how many of those languages are almost extinct--many have just a couple speakers left.

Languages of the U.S.A.

Which reminds me of a quote that got cemented into my brain after seeing it over and over again (posted somewhere on a bulletin board at GIAL):

"Another last word,
Another lost world."

I think it was a poster offering funding for people who would like to document "endangered languages," that is, languages that seem to be dying out. Sometimes languages die out because the speakers die out, but often the languages die away because the speakers of that language begin to use, or their children start to grow up using, a different language.