what is the world' s least spoken language?

Question

where is it spoken?

Answer 1

Bikya, although the earlier info cited is out of date. The woman mentioned as the last known user of this dialect died earlier this year, making this (as far as is known) a dead language. If I remember correctly, the Alaskan woman mentioned also has since passed on

There are a number of endagered languages, but the rarest language still in existence is Ainu, a Japanes dialect. There are only around 300 known users of the language, only 15 of whom actively using the dialect.

Linguist actually estimate that btwn three and six thousand languages will disappear from use by 2010

Answer 2

Least Spoken Language

Answer 3

I guess you'd have to re-phrase your question - do you want to know the least-spoken language that is also the *only* language spoken by those who speak it, or the least-spoken by people who are also bilingual. I believe that there are only six Cornish speakers still alive, although of course they also speak English. However, there are places in Papua New Guinea where they still keep finding remnants of tribes that have never had external contact and have their own language, and I believe that the same applies to some Australian aboriginals.

A propos of nothing at all, there's a record of JRR Tolkein speaking in Gothic, which is a dead language that he studied to the point of knowing how to pronounce it.

Answer 4

The world's least used language is Bikya, spoken by an 87-year-old
woman living near the Cameroon/Nigeria border.

Answer 5

There are lots of small languages with few speakers, and the least spoken ones are those with just one living speaker left. When that speaker dies, the language will become extinct. Many indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest in the US are nearly extinct, for instance.

Answer 6

Some languages have only a few relict speakers. As I recall reading, there is one native Alaskan language that has only one, very elderly native-speaker left.

Ket with 550 remaining speakers, will be dead within a generation. It is the sole surviving member of the Yeniseian language family. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ket_language

Answer 7

Mary Smith, 83, of Anchorage, Alaska, says she is the last speaker of Eyak, a claim verified by linguists. She doesn't like to be the last one. "It's horrible to be alone," says Smith who grew up speaking Eyak. "I am the last person that talks in our language - the last of the Eyaks." How sad is that!

See the excellent site about archaic and dying languages...good information.

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/endangered.html

Answer 8

Latin. It is an ancient Indo-European language.

It was originally spoken in Latium, which is the region immediately surrounding Rome. It became the formal language of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was also adopted by Medieval scholars and the Catholic Church. We still use the terms in law, academic, and scientific terminology.
It is now widely considered an extinct language. There are only a few people fluent in it and next to no native ones.

Answer 9

Sign Language. All over the world.

Answer 10

interesting question, my guess would be a native American people that are nearly gone, I just don't know which one it is.