Overview
- The research published in Science on Thursday, July 23, 2026, used models to reconstruct language counts across the last 12,000 years and estimates a late-Holocene peak of tens of thousands of languages between about 1,000 and 3,000 years ago.
- Models start from ethnographic data on 171 hunter-gatherer and fisher groups and combine those group sizes with independent reconstructions of ancient human populations to infer plausible numbers of distinct languages.
- Results show language diversity grew after the end of the last Ice Age and then fell steadily, with the initial decline linked to the spread of large states and early empires rather than solely to modern European colonialism.
- Today there are roughly 7,100–7,500 living languages, about half are endangered, and researchers estimate at least four languages are lost each year, meaning surviving languages are the selective remnants of a much larger past pool.
- The findings matter because losing a language erases traditional knowledge and social institutions, and the study’s acknowledged uncertainty—due to scarce written records before about 6,000 years ago—underscores the need to document, teach, and support vulnerable languages now.