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Endangered Languages Archive

Every two weeks a language dies. This archive documents Africa's most threatened languages — starting with Yaakunte of Kenya's Mukogodo Forest — with researched profiles, word lists and an open door for speakers, elders, students and researchers to add what they know.

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Endangered Languages Archive by Discussion Dictionary

Languages in the archive

12 languages documented. Each page carries a researched profile, a growing bilingual word list and a public contribution link.

Critically endangeredFocus

Yaakunte

Yaakunte (Yaaku)
Family: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic (Lowland East Cushitic)
Where: Kenya · Mukogodo Forest, Doldol, Laikipia County
Speakers: A handful of elderly semi-speakers; no reliable count

Yaakunte is the ancestral Cushitic language of the Yaaku (Yiaku) people of the Mukogodo Forest in Laikipia, Kenya. Almost the entire community now speaks Maa, and only a few elders retain fluent Yaakunte, making it one of the most critically endangered languages in East Africa.

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Critically endangered

Ongota

Birale
Family: Language isolate (Cushitic or Omotic affiliation disputed)
Where: Ethiopia · Weyt'o River valley, South Omo
Speakers: Fewer than a dozen fluent speakers

Ongota is spoken in a single village on the Weyt'o River in southern Ethiopia. The community is shifting to the neighbouring Cushitic language Ts'amakko, and only a few elderly speakers remain. Its genealogical classification is still unresolved.

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Dormant

Elmolo

El Molo
Family: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic
Where: Kenya · South-eastern shore of Lake Turkana
Speakers: Dormant as a first language; remembered vocabulary survives

Elmolo was spoken by the fishing communities of Lake Turkana. During the twentieth century the community shifted to Samburu, a Nilotic language, and Elmolo ceased to be transmitted, although substantial remembered vocabulary has been recorded.

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Moribund

Omotik

Omotik
Family: Nilo-Saharan, Southern Nilotic
Where: Kenya · Rift Valley, among Maasai communities
Speakers: About 50 older adults recorded in 1980

Omotik is a Southern Nilotic language of a former hunter-gatherer community living among Maasai pastoralists in the Kenyan Rift Valley. Nearly all Omotik people now speak Maa.

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Critically endangered

Njerep

Njerep
Family: Niger-Congo, Mambiloid
Where: Cameroon · Adamawa, Mambila plateau
Speakers: About 4 speakers recorded in 2018

Njerep is spoken by a handful of people on the Mambila plateau of Cameroon and is no longer used for everyday communication even among them.

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Critically endangered or extinct

Bikya

Bikya
Family: Niger-Congo, Southern Bantoid (Furu)
Where: Cameroon · Furu-Awa area, North-West Cameroon
Speakers: One fluent speaker identified in 1986; likely none today

Bikya became widely known when a single elderly speaker was recorded in 1986. No later fluent speaker has been confirmed.

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Critically endangered

Nuu (Nǁng)

Nǀuu
Family: Tuu (Khoisan)
Where: South Africa · Northern Cape, Upington and Askham area
Speakers: One fully fluent speaker in the mid 2020s

Nǁng, usually cited in its Nǀuu variety, is a click language of the Northern Cape that was believed extinct until speakers were located in the 1990s. Katrina Esau has taught the language to children in informal classes.

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Endangered

Laal

Laal
Family: Language isolate
Where: Chad · Moyen-Chari, villages of Gori and Damtar on the Chari River
Speakers: About 750, with younger people shifting away

Laal is spoken in two villages on the Chari River in southern Chad and has no confirmed relatives. It is often described as a relic of an older Central African language stratum.

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Severely endangered

Defaka

Defaka
Family: Niger-Congo, Ijoid
Where: Nigeria · Rivers State, Nkoroo area of the Niger Delta
Speakers: About 200 recorded in 2001

Defaka is an Ijoid language of the Niger Delta whose speakers live within the Nkoroo community and are shifting to Nkoroo, English and Nigerian Pidgin.

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Extinct

Kw'adza

Kw'adza
Family: Afro-Asiatic, South Cushitic
Where: Tanzania · Bahi and Manyara area
Speakers: None; the last speaker died in the late twentieth century

Kw'adza was a South Cushitic language of Tanzania, related to but distinct from Iraqw. It is recorded as extinct, its last speaker having died between 1976 and 1999.

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Threatened

Baga Mboteni

Baga Pokur
Family: Niger-Congo, Mel (Rio Nunez)
Where: Guinea · Coastal villages of Binari and Mboteni
Speakers: Ethnic population around 3,000; active speakers fewer

Baga Mboteni is one of the Rio Nunez languages of coastal Guinea. Widespread bilingualism in Susu has replaced it in most public domains.

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Threatened

Khwe (Kxoe)

Khwedam
Family: Khoe-Kwadi, Khoe (Kalahari branch)
Where: Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Zambia · Zambezi and Okavango regions
Speakers: Several thousand, unevenly distributed

Khwe is one of the larger surviving Khoe languages, spoken across four countries by San and Khoe communities. It is threatened rather than moribund, but displacement and schooling in dominant languages are eroding transmission.

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How this archive is built

1. Research

Profiles draw on published linguistic description, UNESCO and Endangered Languages Project classifications, and community sources. Uncertainty is stated, never invented.

2. Community contribution

Anyone with a shareable link can submit a word, its English meaning, pronunciation and an example sentence — no account needed.

3. Editorial review

Every submission enters a review queue. Editors approve, correct or reject before a word becomes part of the public record.