The Widely-Spoken Languages We Still Can't Translate Online

In the internet age, when we face a language barrier, there are a host of internet resources to solve it: things like translation apps, dictionary websites, versions of Wikipedia in other languages, and the simple "click to translate" option. But there are about 7000 languages spoken in the world today. The top 10 or so are spoken by hundred of millions of speakers; the bottom third have 1000 speakers or fewer. Gretchen McCulloch is WIRED's resident linguist. Her book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language is due out in July 2019 from Penguin.