but they can still die. Why languages are the way they are? Why are there so many in some places and so few in others? How did languages develop so many different ways of fulfilling the same kinds of communicative tasks? What is uniquely human about language, and how do the human mind and language shape each other? This is something of a new direction in linguistics. When we understand how the building blocks of language work, we will be further along the path to understanding the human mind. Languages are a lot more than just a bundle of words. They also include all the principles for combining those words into meaningful utterances: grammar. And, like words, grammar also changes over time. Does grammar evolves in the same way as words. The lexicons of a languages (the set of words each language has) change in two ways over historical time: the sound systems of individual languages change – meaning that their words sound different – and words are replaced by other words through processes including meaning change and borrowing from other languages. Grammars change in similar ways. Linguistic diversity have only recently become possible thanks to parallel improvements in the quality of data we have access to and the quality of the methods we have available to analyse them. But as tools and methods improve, world linguistic diversity is decreasing. Nearly half the people in the world today speak at least one of Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, English or Arabic, and thousands of smaller languages are facing extinction.How will we speak in 100 years? 90% of languages will become extinct because of migration, linguist claims. Some linguist predict 600 languages will remain in 2115. This will be due to the movement of people and parents not teaching their children ‘native’ languages used to particular parts of the world. Also languages will also likely become more simple. Translating tools will not be enough to preserve linguistic diversity. And the scenario where only one language remains is impossible.