Saturday, 8 May, 2021 - 05:15 A teacher gesturing during an Arabic language class at a school on the outskirts of Paris on October 3, 2018. (File photo: AFP) London - Asharq Al-Awsat For many reasons, including globalization and cultural assimilation, a handful of languages, such as English, Spanish, and Mandarin, are dominating the world's linguistic landscape—and that often comes at the expense of older and less popular dialects, which slowly fade out, Tribune Media Services reported. It's estimated that a language goes extinct every 14 days; almost half of the world's 6,000 to 7,000 languages are endangered. UNESCO has a scale for threatened languages, called the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, where tongues range from vulnerable to critically endangered.