According to Ethnologue, there are about 7,100 living languages spoken around the world right now. Unfortunately, only 100 or so languages receive any commercial interest. So, what about the other 7,000?

There are people and organizations out there who care deeply about learning and preserving the other 7,000 languages. We at Transparent Language care deeply about teaching and promoting them. That’s why we launched the 7,000 Languages Project back in 2013. By bringing together their language expertise and our technology, we’re creating compelling language-learning courses in dozens of underserved languages, from Balinese to Ojibwe.

So why are we simply giving away our technology to these partners? Our CEO, Michael Quinlan believes that “losing a language is like pulling out one more thread from the human tapestry. It flattens our cultural landscape.” We trust that saving a language preserves a part of who we’ve been and who we are.

Hear more from Michael and see what happens when we put our technology in the hands of experts and advocates for less common languages in his TEDx Talk given in March 2015 at TEDxTacoma.

To learn more about the 7000 Languages Project, including how to become a partner, please visit: http://www.transparent.com/about/7000-languages-project.html.