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At a time when social media users, for no particularly good reason, are trading in fully formed words for abbreviations ("defs" instead of "definitely"), it may seem that some languages are under threat of deterioration — literally.

But social media may actually be beneficial for languages.

Of the estimated 7,000 languages that are spoken around the world, UNESCO projects half will disappear by the end of the century. But social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are in a position to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages, linguists and language-preservation activists say.

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