FACTBOX-Five 'hot spots' for vanishing languages

(Reuters) - Linguists working to document rare human languages and prevent their extinction named five places on Tuesday where languages are disappearing the most quickly. Their Enduring Voices project is backed by National Geographic.

Following is a description of these five "hot spots."

NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia are home to 153 languages. There are three known speakers of the Magati Ke language and three known speakers of the Yawuru language. Words in these imperilled languages include "barrkmulbardme," which means "hopping male Black Wallaroo" in Kune.

CENTRAL SOUTH AMERICA

The region running along the Andes Mountains and into the Amazon basin includes Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia, with 113 languages. The Kallawaya use Spanish or Quechua in daily life but maintain a secret language full of information about medicinal plants, some previously unknown to science. Lengua, a language spoken in Paraguay, uses fingers and toes to count. "Eleven" is expressed as "arrived at the foot, one." "Twenty" means "finished the feet."

NORTH AMERICAN NORTHWEST PACIFIC PLATEAU

An estimated 54 indigenous languages are losing out to English in British Columbia in Canada and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. Only one person now speaks Siletz Dee-ni, the last of 27 languages once spoken on the Siletz reservation in Oregon.

EASTERN SIBERIA