The rise and fall of languages like Sanskrit is a natural outcome of social evolution.: "According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) 2009 Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, India tops the list of countries where languages are precariously balanced between neglect and extinction. We have 196 endangered languages, including 84 that are ‘unsafe’, 62 that are definitely endangered, 35 officially endangered and nine extinct languages. Those who mourn the loss of our diverse linguistic heritage complain about the neglect that has beset all those tongues not included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which lists 22 ‘Indian’ languages. All others are left out in the cold, being listed in the census as, well, ‘others’.
Unesco also lists about 2,500 of the 6,000 languages spoken in the world as doomed or likely to disappear in the foreseeable future. In India alone, the 2001 census catalogued a whopping 6,661 mother tongues, later distilled into about 122 scheduled and non-scheduled languages."
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