1,500 languages could be lost in the next 100 years, study finds

Around 1,500 endangered and rare languages are at a high risk of being lost in the next century, according to a study of thousands of spoken languages. 

The study, published on Thursday in Nature Ecology and Evolution, evaluated 6,511 spoken languages in 51 different categories pertaining to language maintenance — like population of speakers, documentation, legal recognition and environmental features. 

The study found that around half of the world's 7,000 documented languages are endangered. It also found that greater road density was associated with higher risk of endangerment.