Final answer:
It is true that there are more than 7,000 spoken languages worldwide. The vast majority have relatively few speakers and no written form, adding to the linguistic diversity but also leading to the risk of these languages becoming extinct due to globalization.
Option '1' is the correct.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is true that more than 7,000 different languages are spoken throughout the world. Languages are the essence of human communication, reflecting the immense diversity of culture, literature, and arts. While approximately a dozen languages boast more than 100 million speakers each, forming the group of the world's main languages, the majority are used by far fewer people.
There is a significant number of languages that have no written form and are spoken by declining populations. These languages, despite their smaller number of speakers, contribute profoundly to the world's linguistic diversity.
Sadly, experts from LibreTexts anticipate that up to half of the world's living languages could vanish by the end of the 21st century due to the forces of globalization. As more people adopt widely spoken languages, the less commonly used ones are in danger of being lost.
In the context of global language families, the Indo-European languages cover a vast spread of geographies and histories, with subfamilies such as Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages shaping the linguistic landscape of Europe. On a global scale, linguists use a family tree model to classify languages, tracing their evolution from common ancestors to the diverse array of tongues spoken today.
The future of language diversity is truly at a crossroad, influenced by historical migration patterns, globalization, and shifting demographics.