Some of the amazing people we’ve recorded so far. Together they speak nearly 50 languages, representing 33 countries and every continent.

Wikitongues is an international volunteer community and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, protecting, and raising awareness about language diversity. To do this, we’re collecting content in every one of the world’s 7,000 languages for the sake of preservation, education, and cultural bridge-building. Since we started, we’ve recorded hundreds of oral histories in more than 170 unique languages, representing 40 countries on every continent — and we’re just getting started. By the end of the year, we’ll have recorded videos of more than 350 languages, representing 5% of every language community on Earth.

However, while watching videos of speakers is a great way to get introduced to other cultures, it only scratches the surface. We want to go beyond raising awareness about 7,000 languages, by helping people learn them all. Communities need simple, connected and intelligent tools to share, and in many cases, preserve their language. That’s why we’re building Poly, an app that makes it easy for anyone to create and share language dictionaries with people from around the world, by adding phrases and their meanings in text and video.

Wikitongues was created by Daniel Bogre Udell, Freddie Andrade, and Lindie Botes.

Learn more about Wikitongues and back this project by clicking here.