Half of World's Languages Could Be Extinct by 2100

But modern tools are helping to revive Ireland's national language. An Irish proverb advises that it is often wise for one to hold his tongue. An té is ciúine is é is buaine, or "he who is silent is the stronger." But that ancestral wisdom isn't the best policy when the very language it comes from is threatened. The Irish language, Gaelic, is one of more than 40 percent of the world's 6,000 spoken languages that are endangered, according to UNESCO.