Bogre Udell，who speaks four languages，met Frederico Andrade，who speaks five，at the Parsons New School in New York City.In 2014，they started a project to make the first public records of every language in the world.They’ve already recorded more than 350 languages，and plan to hit 1,000 in the coming years.

“When humans lose a language，we also lose greater diversity (多样化) in art and traditions，” said Bogre Udell.Between 1950 and 2010,230 languages disappeared.Today，a third of the world’s languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers left.Every two weeks a language dies with its last speaker，and 50 to 90 percent of them are said to disappear by the next century.

Wikitongues has asked for volunteers in 40 countries to film native speakers talking in the past，present，and future tenses of their mother languages.Native speakers are asked to recall childhood，share their stories，and discuss their hopes and goals.One volunteer in the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu recorded a language that had never been studied by language experts before.Another volunteer found a speaker of Ainu，a language in Japan that has no relation to any other known language，and he also recorded it.However，priceless recording opportunities disappear regularly.Not long ago，one of the last two speakers of a Saami language in the Russian steppes died right before his recording session with Wikitongues.

A lack(缺少) of protection and globalization(全球化) are responsible for diminishing language diversity.For much of the 20th century，governments across the world forced some local people to use official languages.More than 100 languages in Australia have disappeared since European settlers arrived.However，most languages die today because of other factors; climate change and urbanization contribute(是……的原因之一) greatly to the disappearance of languages.

Spoken language is a form of communication in which people uses the mouth to create recognizable sounds. These sounds come from a large vocabulary of series of sounds with agreed meanings. These series of sounds are called words, and each represents one or more objects or ideas. A shared grammar allows the speaker to form these words into statements which listeners will be able to understand.

The origins of spoken language remain unclear, although they are the subject of the research by experts. Evidence suggests that early humans used some form of vocal (发音的) communication, but it is not certain when this first became enough to be considered spoken language. Vocal communication occurs in many species of animals, but this communication does not appear to have the grammar and vocabulary which would qualify it as a language.

A study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America suggests that the language developed in humans was about 100,000 years ago. However, the development of spoken language is extremely difficult to find the origin from the archaeological or fossil record. Unlike written language, spoken language leaves no physical trace (痕迹).

Spoken language is not the only form of human communication. Written language expresses meaning through the use of writing, in which words express the meanings of spoken language. Many languages have both a written and a spoken form, although there are a number of languages which have a spoken form but no written form. For example, the Mosuo, a group who live near Lugu Lake in China’s Yunnan, have a local language which is only spoken. However, the reverse is much less common.