Today there are at least 7000 living languages across the world. Of them, 330 languages have more than 1 million speakers each but 51 languages have only one speaker each. Gradually these endangered languages are shifting, decaying or dying out. The extinction of any language, minor or major, results in the irrevocable loss of unique cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge contained within it. By allowing languages to die out we are destroying what needs to be preserved.

India with its 380 languages has the world’s fourth-largest number of languages. Even now some patches of this vast linguistic treasure are still unclassified, making them prone to gradual extinction. The need of the hour is to, therefore, protect and preserve such languages. The biggest impediments in this process of preservation are the lack of awareness about the importance of protection of endangered languages, lack of proper training and technical knowledge of the research personnel involved and the lack of involvement of the native communities in the process. It is these needs and gaps that SEL seeks to address.