Globalization and Preservation of National Languages: Challenges of the Digital Age

Abstract

The article explores how globalization and digitalization affect the preservation of national or minority languages in the modern world. The aim of the study was to identify and interpret the relationships between global linguistic diversity, the level of digitalization of countries and their socio-economic development, as well as to assess the potential risks and opportunities provided by the digital environment for linguistic heritage. The theoretical basis of the study includes modern sociolinguistic approaches, digital studies and language policy. The empirical base of the study is taken from international data from open sources (Our World In Data, World Bank, W3Techs, Ethnologue and UNESCO). The following statistical methods were used to process statistical data: descriptive statistics, Spearman and Kendall rank correlations, Kraskel-Wallis test for nonparametric statistical testing, and comparative analysis of temporal trends. In the course of the study, the authors found that linguistic diversity is unevenly distributed throughout the world, a comparative analysis was carried out by continents and countries of the world. A statistically significant negative correlation was found between the amount of living languages and the extent of internet use in the countries of the world, which suggest an asymmetry between language representation and internet inclusion. Statistically significant differences between groups of countries in terms of income level were also found: the average number of living languages in high-income countries is less than in lower-income countries. An analysis of the linguistic composition of web materials in the world from 2015 to 2026 showed that the English language retains its dominance, but the shares of Spanish and Portuguese are growing. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the complex combination of sociolinguistic and statistical analysis of global language processes in the context of the digital economy. The practical significance of the study lies in the formation of recommendations for national and international language policy, in particular the development of digital data corpora, the localization of technological platforms, the support of low-resource languages in artificial intelligence systems, and the expansion of language communities' access to digital infrastructure.