SAVING LANGUAGE There is nothing unusual about a single language dying. Communities have come and gone throughout history, and with them their language. But what is happening today is extraordinary, judged by the standards of the past. It is language extinction on a large scale. According to the best estimates, there are some 6, 000 languages in the world. Of course, about half are going to die out in the course of the next century: that’’s 3,000 language in 1,200 months. On average, there is a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so. How do we know In the course of the past two or three decades, linguists all over the world have been gathering comparative data. If they find a language with just a few speakers left, and nobody is bothering to pass the language on to the children, they conclude that language is bound to die out soon. And we have to draw the same conclusion if a language has less than 100 speakers. It is not likely to last very long. A 1999 survey shows that 97 per cent of the world’’s languages are spoken by just four percent of the people. It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language. But many languages are not in such a serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered, there are things that can be done to give new life to them. It is called revitalization. Once a community realizes that its language is in danger, it can start to introduce measures which can genuinely revitalize. The community itself must want to save its language. The culture of which it is a part must need to have a respect for minority languages. There need to be funding to support courses, materials, and teachers. And there need to be linguists to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper. That’’s the bottom line: getting the language documented—recorded, analyzed, written down. People must be able to read and write down. People must be able to read and write if they and their language are to have a future in an increasingly computer-literate civilization. But can we save a few thousand languages, just like that Yes, if the will and funding were available. It is not cheap getting linguists into the field, training local analysts, supporting the community with language resources and teachers, compiling grammars and dictionaries, writing materials for use in schools. It takes time, lots of it, to revitalize an endangered language. Conditions vary so much that it is difficult to generalize, but a figure of $ 900 millions, is not only stopping its steady decline towards extinction but showing signs of real growth. Two language Acts protect the status of Welsh now, and its presence is increasingly in evidence wherever you travel in Wales. On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called "language nests", first introduced in 1982. These are organizations which provide children under five with a domestic setting in which they are all intensively exposed to the language. The staff are all Maori speakers from the local community. The hope is that the children will keep their Maori skills alive after leaving the nests, and that as they grow older they will in turn become role models to a new generation of young children. There are cases like this all over the world. And when the reviving language is associated with a degree of political autonomy, the growth can be especially striking, as shown by Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, after the islanders received a measure of autonomy from Denmark. In Switzerland, Romansch was facing a difficult situation, spoken in five very different dialects, with small and diminishing numbers, as young people left their community numbers in the German-speaking cities. The solution here was the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects. Romansch Grischun, as it is now called, has official status in parts of Switzerland, and is being increasingly used in spoken form on radio and television. A language can be brought back from the very brink of extinction. The Ainu language of Japan, after many years of neglect and repression, had reached a stage where there were only eight fluent speakers left, all elderly. However, new government policies brought fresh attitudes and a positive interest in survival. Several "semispeakers" —people who become unwilling to speak Ainu because of the negative attitudes by Japanese speakers — were prompted to become active speakers again. There is fresh interest now and the language is more publicly available than it has been for years. If good descriptions and materials arc available, even extinct languages can be revived. Kaurna, from South Australia, is an example. This language had been extinct for about a century, but had been quite well documented. So, when a strong movement grew for its revival, it was possible to reconstruct it. The revised language is not the same as the original, of course. It lacks the range that the original had, and much of the old vocabulary. But it can nonetheless act as a badge of present-day identity for its people. And as long as people continue to value it as a true marker of their identity, and are prepared to keep using it, it will develop new functions and new vocabulary, as any other living language would do. It is too soon to predict the future of these revived languages, but in some parts of the world they are attracting precisely the range of positive attitudes and grass roots support which are the preconditions for language survival. In such unexpected but heart-warming ways might we see the grand total of languages in the world increased. The preconditions for a language to survive is the people’’s______.
SAVING LANGUAGE There is nothing unusual about a single language dying. Communities have come and gone throughout history, and with them their language. But what is happening today is extraordinary, judged by the standards of the past. It is language extinction on a large scale. According to the best estimates, there are some 6, 000 languages in the world. Of course, about half are going to die out in the course of the next century: that’’s 3,000 language in 1,200 months. On average, there is a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so. How do we know In the course of the past two or three decades, linguists all over the world have been gathering comparative data. If they find a language with just a few speakers left, and nobody is bothering to pass the language on to the children, they conclude that language is bound to die out soon. And we have to draw the same conclusion if a language has less than 100 speakers. It is not likely to last very long. A 1999 survey shows that 97 per cent of the world’’s languages are spoken by just four percent of the people. It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language. But many languages are not in such a serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered, there are things that can be done to give new life to them. It is called revitalization. Once a community realizes that its language is in danger, it can start to introduce measures which can genuinely revitalize. The community itself must want to save its language. The culture of which it is a part must need to have a respect for minority languages. There need to be funding to support courses, materials, and teachers. And there need to be linguists to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper. That’’s the bottom line: getting the language documented—recorded, analyzed, written down. People must be able to read and write down. People must be able to read and write if they and their language are to have a future in an increasingly computer-literate civilization. But can we save a few thousand languages, just like that Yes, if the will and funding were available. It is not cheap getting linguists into the field, training local analysts, supporting the community with language resources and teachers, compiling grammars and dictionaries, writing materials for use in schools. It takes time, lots of it, to revitalize an endangered language. Conditions vary so much that it is difficult to generalize, but a figure of $ 900 millions, is not only stopping its steady decline towards extinction but showing signs of real growth. Two language Acts protect the status of Welsh now, and its presence is increasingly in evidence wherever you travel in Wales. On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called "language nests", first introduced in 1982. These are organizations which provide children under five with a domestic setting in which they are all intensively exposed to the language. The staff are all Maori speakers from the local community. The hope is that the children will keep their Maori skills alive after leaving the nests, and that as they grow older they will in turn become role models to a new generation of young children. There are cases like this all over the world. And when the reviving language is associated with a degree of political autonomy, the growth can be especially striking, as shown by Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, after the islanders received a measure of autonomy from Denmark. In Switzerland, Romansch was facing a difficult situation, spoken in five very different dialects, with small and diminishing numbers, as young people left their community numbers in the German-speaking cities. The solution here was the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects. Romansch Grischun, as it is now called, has official status in parts of Switzerland, and is being increasingly used in spoken form on radio and television. A language can be brought back from the very brink of extinction. The Ainu language of Japan, after many years of neglect and repression, had reached a stage where there were only eight fluent speakers left, all elderly. However, new government policies brought fresh attitudes and a positive interest in survival. Several "semispeakers" —people who become unwilling to speak Ainu because of the negative attitudes by Japanese speakers — were prompted to become active speakers again. There is fresh interest now and the language is more publicly available than it has been for years. If good descriptions and materials arc available, even extinct languages can be revived. Kaurna, from South Australia, is an example. This language had been extinct for about a century, but had been quite well documented. So, when a strong movement grew for its revival, it was possible to reconstruct it. The revised language is not the same as the original, of course. It lacks the range that the original had, and much of the old vocabulary. But it can nonetheless act as a badge of present-day identity for its people. And as long as people continue to value it as a true marker of their identity, and are prepared to keep using it, it will develop new functions and new vocabulary, as any other living language would do. It is too soon to predict the future of these revived languages, but in some parts of the world they are attracting precisely the range of positive attitudes and grass roots support which are the preconditions for language survival. In such unexpected but heart-warming ways might we see the grand total of languages in the world increased. Romansch Gri schun is a (an)_____language in parts of Switzerland.
Although your Chinese host will not expect you to know everything about proper banquet behavior, he will greatly appreciate it when you are displaying some knowledge of the subject, because it shows that you have respect for Chinese culture, manners and traditions. Banquets are usually held in restaurants in private rooms that have been reserved for the purpose. You will be met at the door and guided to the banquet room. Traditionally, the head of your delegation should enter the room first. Do not be surprised if your hosts greet you with a loud round of applause. The proper response is to applaud back. Seating arrangements, which are based on rank, are stricter than in the West. Guests should never assume that they may sit where they please and should wait for hosts to guide them to their places. Traditionally, the Chinese regard the right side as the superior and the left side as the inferior. Therefore on formal occasions, including meetings and banquets, the host invariably arranges for the main guests to sit on his right side. At very formal banquets, people do not begin to eat until the principal host served a portion to the principal guest. Or, the host may simply raise his chopsticks and announce that eating has begun. After this point, one may serve oneself any food in any amount. Remember to go slow on eating. Don’’t fill yourself up when five courses are left to go. To stop eating in the middle of a banquet is rude, and your host may incorrectly think that something has been done to offend you. Drinking takes an important place in Chinese banquets. Toasting is necessary, and the drinking of spirits begins only after the host has made a toast at the beginning of the meal. When he says the words gan bei, which means bottoms up, all present should drain their glasses. After this initial toast, drinking and toasting are open to all. Subsequent toasts can be made from person to person or to the group as a whole. No words are needed to make a toast, and it is not necessary to drain your glass, although to do so is more respectful. What does the author say about drinking at the banquet
A. You need to drain your glass every time a toast is proposed.
B. Every guest needs to make a toast of no more than 50 words.
C. The host may ask the guests to drain their glasses in the initial toast.
D. If you can make a toast in Chinese, you will be more respected.
SAVING LANGUAGE There is nothing unusual about a single language dying. Communities have come and gone throughout history, and with them their language. But what is happening today is extraordinary, judged by the standards of the past. It is language extinction on a large scale. According to the best estimates, there are some 6, 000 languages in the world. Of course, about half are going to die out in the course of the next century: that’’s 3,000 language in 1,200 months. On average, there is a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so. How do we know In the course of the past two or three decades, linguists all over the world have been gathering comparative data. If they find a language with just a few speakers left, and nobody is bothering to pass the language on to the children, they conclude that language is bound to die out soon. And we have to draw the same conclusion if a language has less than 100 speakers. It is not likely to last very long. A 1999 survey shows that 97 per cent of the world’’s languages are spoken by just four percent of the people. It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language. But many languages are not in such a serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered, there are things that can be done to give new life to them. It is called revitalization. Once a community realizes that its language is in danger, it can start to introduce measures which can genuinely revitalize. The community itself must want to save its language. The culture of which it is a part must need to have a respect for minority languages. There need to be funding to support courses, materials, and teachers. And there need to be linguists to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper. That’’s the bottom line: getting the language documented—recorded, analyzed, written down. People must be able to read and write down. People must be able to read and write if they and their language are to have a future in an increasingly computer-literate civilization. But can we save a few thousand languages, just like that Yes, if the will and funding were available. It is not cheap getting linguists into the field, training local analysts, supporting the community with language resources and teachers, compiling grammars and dictionaries, writing materials for use in schools. It takes time, lots of it, to revitalize an endangered language. Conditions vary so much that it is difficult to generalize, but a figure of $ 900 millions, is not only stopping its steady decline towards extinction but showing signs of real growth. Two language Acts protect the status of Welsh now, and its presence is increasingly in evidence wherever you travel in Wales. On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called "language nests", first introduced in 1982. These are organizations which provide children under five with a domestic setting in which they are all intensively exposed to the language. The staff are all Maori speakers from the local community. The hope is that the children will keep their Maori skills alive after leaving the nests, and that as they grow older they will in turn become role models to a new generation of young children. There are cases like this all over the world. And when the reviving language is associated with a degree of political autonomy, the growth can be especially striking, as shown by Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, after the islanders received a measure of autonomy from Denmark. In Switzerland, Romansch was facing a difficult situation, spoken in five very different dialects, with small and diminishing numbers, as young people left their community numbers in the German-speaking cities. The solution here was the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects. Romansch Grischun, as it is now called, has official status in parts of Switzerland, and is being increasingly used in spoken form on radio and television. A language can be brought back from the very brink of extinction. The Ainu language of Japan, after many years of neglect and repression, had reached a stage where there were only eight fluent speakers left, all elderly. However, new government policies brought fresh attitudes and a positive interest in survival. Several "semispeakers" —people who become unwilling to speak Ainu because of the negative attitudes by Japanese speakers — were prompted to become active speakers again. There is fresh interest now and the language is more publicly available than it has been for years. If good descriptions and materials arc available, even extinct languages can be revived. Kaurna, from South Australia, is an example. This language had been extinct for about a century, but had been quite well documented. So, when a strong movement grew for its revival, it was possible to reconstruct it. The revised language is not the same as the original, of course. It lacks the range that the original had, and much of the old vocabulary. But it can nonetheless act as a badge of present-day identity for its people. And as long as people continue to value it as a true marker of their identity, and are prepared to keep using it, it will develop new functions and new vocabulary, as any other living language would do. It is too soon to predict the future of these revived languages, but in some parts of the world they are attracting precisely the range of positive attitudes and grass roots support which are the preconditions for language survival. In such unexpected but heart-warming ways might we see the grand total of languages in the world increased. A extinct language can never be revived no matter what you do about it.
A. Y
B. N
C. NG