32.各語種的發展與消亡
段落大意：有一些語種通過社會等級、性別、職業、年齡群體等社會外力獲得了持續發展，另一些語種卻消失了。人類學家們正努力挽救一些瀕臨滅亡的語種。
Over 6,000.languages and major dialects are spoken in the world today. As some languages grow, others disappear. Languages that grow also evolve and change due to class, gender, profession, age group, and other social forces. The Latin language is no longer spoken but survives in written form. Hebrew（希伯來語） is an ancient language that became extinct, but has been brought back to life and is spoken today. Others, such as the ancient languages of native peoples in Central and South America, which had no written form, have been lost as the speakers died. Today anthropologists are trying to record and preserve these ancient languages that are still spoken in remote areas or by the last remaining people in a culture.
33.語種消亡的現狀
段落大意：我們正麵臨著失去90%語言的危險趨勢，而這一趨勢在過去卻很少受到關注。
The vanishing Rotokas language （羅托卡特語） exemplifies （例證） a little-noticed tragedy looming（隱約出現） over us, the possible loss of 90.percent of our languages, which are a great part of our creative heritage. We hear much anguished （痛苦的） discussion about the accelerating disappearance of indigenous（原住民的） cultures as our Coca-Cola civilization spreads over the world. Much less attention has been paid to the disappearance of languages and to their essential role in the survival of those indigenous cultures. Each language is the vehicle for a unique way of thinking, a unique literature, and a unique view of the world. Only now are linguists starting seriously to estimate the rate of language loss around the world and to debate what to do about it.
34.小語種消亡的原因 Ⅰ
段落大意：大部分語言都屬於小語種，這些語言的使用者數目非常小。
If the present rate of disappearance continues, our 6,000.modern languages could be reduced within a century or two to just a few hundred. Time is running out even to study those dying languages. Hence linguists face a race against time similar to that faced by biologists who are now aware that many of the world’s plant and animal species are in danger of extinction. To understand the problem, we should take a look at how the world’s languages are divvied （分享） up. If the global population of about 5.5.billion was equally distributed among its 6,000.tongues, then each language would have roughly 900,000.speakers, enough to give each language a fair chance to survive. Of course, the vast majority of people use only one of a few “big”languages, such as Mandarin （普通話） Chinese, English, or Spanish, each with hundreds of millions of native speakers. The vast majority of languages are “little”ones, with a median number of perhaps only 5,000.speakers.
35.小語種消亡的原因 Ⅱ
段落大意：大部分小語種的消失過程並不明顯，是隱伏的。年輕人為尋求經濟機會等放棄方言，轉而使用主流語言。
In most cases, language loss proceeds by an insidious （隱伏的） process. With political unification of an area formerly occupied by sedentary （土生的） tribes, peace, mobility, intermarriage, and schools arise. Mixed couples may have no common language except the majority language, for example, English or Pidgin English （混雜英語） in Papua New Guinea （巴布亞新幾內亞）. Young people in search of economic opportunity abandon their native-speaking villages and move to mixed urban centers, where they have no option except to speak the majority language. Their children’s schools speak the majority language. Even their parents remaining in the village learn the majority language for its access to prestige, trade, and power. Newspapers, radio, and TV overwhelmingly use majority languages understood by most consumers, advertisers, and subscribers. The usual result is that minority young adults tend to become bilingual （雙語的）, and then their children become monolingual（單一語言的） in the majority language. Eventually the minority language is spoken only by older people. Long before that end is reached, the minority language has degenerated with the loss of its grammatical complexities and incorporation of foreign vocabulary and grammatical features.
36.小語種消亡的原因 Ⅲ
段落大意：小語種消亡的主要原因是人類的遷移。更強大的群體壓迫弱勢群體，迫使他們采用新的語言，從而導致他們原有語種的消亡。
Historically, the main cause of language extinction has been the migration of people from one region to another. Humans have always migrated, seeking more favorable lands or fleeing adverse （不利的） conditions, and they often move into territories already occupied. In some cases, as in India, different linguistic and cultural groups coexist （並存） for centuries. More typically, the dominant group oppresses the weaker one, either by making the people leave, forcing them to use the new language, or killing them off. For example, Basque （巴斯克語） is spoken in north central Spain and southwestern France, which is believed by linguists to be the last of many languages that once existed across Europe and were forced out by the arrival of Indo-Europeans （印歐人） beginning about 2000.BC. Indo-European languages adopted few Basque words, if any, suggesting that the groups did not peacefully coexist for any length of time.
37.小語種消亡的原因 Ⅳ
段落大意：政府製定政策限製某些小語種的使用，從而導致許多小語種的消亡。
Government policies have also contributed to the decline or death of many minority languages by restricting their use. For example, the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries often took children away from their Native American parents and sent them to boarding schools （寄宿學校）, where they were forced to learn English. Children from different tribes were typically grouped together so English would be their only common language. Only about half of the 300.indigenous languages spoken in North America are still in use today. Australia enacted similar policies to assimilate （同化） aboriginal （原住民的） peoples. In the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics （USSR）, many indigenous populations across the nation’s vast expanse were subjected to Russification（俄羅斯化） programs during the 1940s and 1950s. These programs sought to teach children the Russian language and Russian cultural norms at the expense of their native languages and identities.
38.小語種消亡的原因 Ⅴ
段落大意：語言滅絕最重要的原因也許是說這種語言的人為了聲望及經濟利益而主動放棄原來的語言，開始使用主流語言。
Perhaps the most important cause of language extinction is the decision of native speakers to shift to a majority language because it offers more prestige and economic opportunities. Immigrants in the United States are often proud of their ability to speak English and even prouder of their children’s native command of the language. To seek a better life, some Native Americans in Latin America are discarding （丟棄） their local tongues for Spanish, and indigenous peoples of Africa are adopting French, English, or Swahili （斯瓦希裏語）.
39.語種分布的地理差異
段落大意：語種分布在地理上的差異很大。原因之一是地形差異和人口密度差異，另一重要原因是土著語言在國家政治擴張及農業發展過程中被同化。
How did the enormous geographic differences in linguistic （語言學的） diversity arise? Partly, they stem from differences in topography （地形） and human population density. However, there’s another reason as well. The original linguistic diversity of many areas has been homogenized （同化） by expansion of political states and of farmers in the last several thousand years. New Guinea （新幾內亞）, Vanuatu （瓦努阿圖）, the Philippines, and aboriginal Australia were exceptional in never having been unified by a native empire. To us, the British and Spanish empires may be the most familiar examples of centralized states that imposed their state language on conquered peoples. The Inca and Aztec （阿茲特克） empires similarly imposed Quechua（克丘亞語） and Nahuatl（納瓦特爾語） on their Indian subjects before 1500.AD. Long before the rise of political states, expansion of farmers must have wiped out thousands of hunter-gatherer languages. For instance, the expansion of Indo-European farmers and herders（牧人） that began around 4000.BC eradicated（根除） all preexisting Western European languages except Basque.
40.多語種存在的可能性
段落大意：雖然人們需要通過共同的語言來理解彼此，但這並不意味著小語種就要被消除，事實上多種語言的共存是可以實現的。
Of course different people need some common languages to understand each other, but that doesn’t require eliminating minority languages. It only requires bilingualism. People in a lot of countries routinely learn two or more languages in childhood, with little effort. For example, Denmark is one of the wealthiest and most contented nations in the world, and Danes （丹麥人） have no problem doing business profitably （賺錢地）with other countries. Almost all Danes speak English, and many speak other foreign languages as well. Still, Danes have no thought of abandoning their tongue, and the Danish language remains indispensable （不可或缺的） to Danes.
41.語言差異不是引起衝突的唯一原因
段落大意：語言差異並非引起衝突的唯一原因，甚或最重要原因。有偏見的人會抓住任何差異作為憎恨他人的借口，如宗教、政治、種族甚至服飾差異。
Language differences aren’t the sole cause, or even the most important cause, of strife. Prejudiced people will seize on （把握） any difference to dislike others, including differences of religion, politics, ethnicity, and dress. One of the bloodiest genocide in history was carried out under Stalin. During that time, Russians killed their peers for supposed political differences.
42.少數族群是否應該放棄自己的語言
段落大意：少數族群放棄自己的語言不一定就能換來和平。 與信仰自由一樣，語言自由也是人類不可剝奪的權利。
If you believe that minorities should give up their languages in order to promote peace, ask yourself whether you believe that minorities should also promote peace by giving up their religions, ethnicities, and political views. If you believe that freedom of religion is an inalienable human right, how would you explain your inconsistency with the freedom of language? Innumerable examples like those of Stalin and Pol Pot warn us that monolingualism （單一語種） is no safeguard of peace. Even if the suppression of minority language, religion, and ethnicity did promote peace, it would exact （索取） a huge price in human suffering.
43.語種消亡的後果 Ⅰ
段落大意：語言是人類大腦最複雜的產物。 當一種語言滅絕時，不僅是語言本身消失了，隨之消失的還有與這種語言捆綁在一起的獨特的文化、文學、世界觀等。
Languages are the most complex products of the human mind, each differing enormously in its sounds, structure, and pattern of thought. However, the language itself isn’t the only thing lost when it goes extinct. Each language is indissolubly （不可分解地） tied up with a unique culture, literature, and worldview, all of which together represent thousands of years of human inventiveness. Losing the language means losing much of that culture as well. Thus the increasing eradication （滅絕） of the world’s languages would be an overwhelming tragedy. The English-speakers would regard the loss of Shakespeare’s language and culture as a loss to humanity. Rotokas villagers feel a similar bond to their own language and culture. We are putting millions of dollars into the effort to save one of the world’s 8,600.bird species, the California condor （禿鷲）. Why do we care so little about most of the world’s 6,000.languages, or even desire their disappearance?
44.語種消亡的後果 Ⅱ
段落大意：語種消亡有著廣泛影響。對本地人來說，語種消亡代表著文化認同感的消失。對整個人類曆史來說，語種消亡意味著與該語言有關的聲音、詩歌等的消亡，文化多樣性也將受損。
The disappearance of a language is likely to be felt most acutely by the people for whom the language is ancestral （祖傳的）, but the loss has profound implications for the larger world as well. For an indigenous people, the death of a native tongue can be experienced as a crushing loss of cultural identity, because language is one of the most obvious means of expressing one’s association with the group. In addition, language provides the foundation for the unique worldview of a people, and losing the language usually means losing the worldview as well. Entire histories may be lost when language dies. The sounds, rhythms, and poetry that made the language unique may be gone forever. Will humanity be able to carry on with one language fewer? Surely so, but the world’s cultural diversity will be diminished.
45.對待語種的兩種主要態度
段落大意：對待不同語種主要有兩種態度：一是語言沒有優劣之分；二是英語比任何印第安語都要好。事實上，語言無法等同或互換，也不存在萬能的“最好的語言”。
There are two major attitudes toward language. One is “one language is really as good as another;”the converse one is “English is much better than any of those fiendishly （極度地） complicated Indian languages.”In reality, languages aren’t equivalent or interchangeable （可互換的）, and there’s no all-purpose （萬能的） “best language.”Instead, as everyone fluent in more than one language knows, different languages have different advantages, such that it’s easier to discuss or think about certain things, or to think and feel in certain ways, in one language than another.
46.小語種的社會經濟學問題
段落大意：對那些講小語種的人來說，他們所麵臨的不隻是更少的工作機會和工作技能，更是文化瓦解。
Think again about the socioeconomic （社會經濟的） problems of the people speaking all the obscure（晦澀的） Indian languages and thousands of other obscure languages around the world, and their problems aren’t just narrow ones of jobs and job skills, but broad ones of cultural disintegration （瓦解）. They’ve been told for so long that their language and everything else about their culture are worthless, and they believe it.
47.保留小語種信息的必要性
段落大意：我們應該盡可能地記錄小語種信息，因為這有助於我們了解人類的起源與發展。
We should at least record as much information as possible about each endangered language, lest all knowledge of it be lost. For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the world’s 6,000.languages, we have either no written information at all, or just brief word lists. If many of those languages do indeed vanish, at least we’d have preserved as much knowledge as possible from irreversible （不可逆轉的） loss. What is the value of such knowledge? One explanation is that the languages that survive today serve to trace the history of human development and migrations, just as existing animal and plant species trace the history of biological evolution. All linguists agree, for instance, that we can trace existing Indo-European languages back to an ancestral Proto-Indo-European language （原始印歐語） spoken somewhere in Europe or western Asia around 6,000.years ago. Now some linguists are trying to trace languages and peoples back much further in time, possibly even back to the origin of all human languages. Many tiny modern languages, most of which now are at risk of vanishing, have proved disproportionately important in answering that question that never fails to interest each of us:Where did I come from?
48.語言對理解人類曆史的重要性
段落大意：語言中包含著重要的人類曆史信息，對語言的研究和了解有助於理解人類曆史。
Important clues to human history are buried in languages. The origin and dispersal（分布） of modern humans is a hotly debated topic among anthropologists. Some of the most interesting data in this debate come from reconstructing the family tree of languages that scattered across the world. The relationships among languages are still poorly understood, but they have yielded（給予） key insights into language evolution and early human migration. For example, they suggest that human language began about 100,000.years ago with a single language. This theory is called monogenesis（單源論）. Many linguists believe that the first language developed in East Africa and gradually spread northward to Asia and then to other parts of the world. As humans migrated, this language began diverging （分開） into a wide variety of distinct languages. By constructing a family tree of languages, scientists can shed light on （有助於闡明） the historical movement of people. However, many important relationships among migrating human populations may never be known because key languages and cultures have disappeared.
49.語言與自然環境知識
段落大意：語言中包含著重要的自然環境知識，有助於科學研究的發展。
Valuable knowledge about the natural environment is often captured in local languages. Scientists looking for medicinal plants have learned that the native names for various species can be helpful in determining which plants might yield （生產） useful substances. For example, the Khanty（漢特人）, a semi-nomadic（半遊牧的）people living near the Ural Mountains （烏拉爾山脈） in western Siberia（西伯利亞）, know the names and medicinal purposes of many species of mushrooms and tree fungi （菌類） that grow only in this region. The Khanty have shared some of this knowledge with scientists, and the mushrooms have yielded useful medicines.
50.不同語言對思想態度的不同表達
段落大意：不同語言對思想態度有著不同的表達，借鑒其他語言可以幫助人們用新的視角看世界。
Ideas and attitudes are expressed differently in different languages, and the act of borrowing them from one language to another helps people develop new ways of looking at the world. In the Siberian （西伯利亞的） language, for example, snakes are called “ground fish,”suggesting that snakes are similar to fish but do not live in water. No such connection is made in the English language. Another example in Siberian language is that a 14-year old person is not described as “14.years old,”as in English, but as “fifteening.”This expression, which may strike English speakers, turns a number into a verb to refer to the next age a person will be. The English language is continually enriched by borrowing non-English words for concepts that lack specific English names. The Spanish word machismo （男子氣概）, for example, is widely used to mean “an exaggerated display of masculinity （男性化）.”In addition to adopting existing words, English speakers sometimes borrow ways of creating words or phrases from other languages. For example, one might say “pizza-schmizza”to show disdain （蔑視） for pizza using a word-formation rule borrowed from Yiddish（意第緒語）, a now endangered language.
51.語種消亡侵害了語言選擇權
段落大意：語種消亡帶來的最重要的損失也許是語言選擇權的喪失。
Perhaps the most important loss that occurs as languages die is the right for indigenous people to choose which language to speak. Some groups of those people may decide they want to use a majority language to better their circumstances. However, many groups do not have this choice, and they are forced to speak a majority language because their original languages are rapidly dying off or becoming moribund （垂死的）.
52.對語言多樣性的限製
段落大意：在世界各地，限製語言多樣性的現象仍很普遍。很多政府為了降低成本都會限製官方語言的種類。
Limits on language diversity are still common practice in some parts of the world. For example, the southeastern African nation of Tanzania （坦桑尼亞） encourages people to abandon their local languages for Swahili（斯瓦希裏語）, which is widely spoken and officially sanctioned （認可）. This policy, like others in places in East Africa, is designed to encourage a sense of national identity in an ethnically and culturally diverse country. Even nations that do not actively seek to hasten the demise （滅絕） of local languages implement a range of policies that encourage language uniformity. All nations, for example, limit the number of languages that may be used in official proceedings. In India, where more than 350.languages are spoken, only 2.are nationally sanctioned:English and Hindi （印度語）. Only a few hundred languages receive official recognition around the world. One factor most nations concern when they officially sanction just one or two languages is the cost. It is simply less expensive to raise armies, collect taxes, and provide basic social services using a few languages, rather than many. Even when the will to preserve minority languages is present, the cost of providing government services or educational materials in multiple languages can be significant.
53.大眾傳媒促進語種的消亡
段落大意：大眾傳媒刺激了大眾語言的傳播，從而在某種程度上限製了小語種的發展。
The extended reach of mass media, such as satellite television beamed （播送） to the most remote corners of the globe, encourages the spread of a few chosen languages. The Internet offers people around the world information and entertainment, but most materials are available only in the most common languages. Minority language communities must therefore adopt the language of the majority to learn about the world.
54.民族自豪感與語言
段落大意：重塑民族自豪感是複興瀕臨滅絕的語言的一個重要部分。
The reassertion of ethnic or cultural pride is often an important part of the effort to restore dying languages. The political struggle in Northern Ireland offers a case in point. The number of Irish speakers steadily declined after England conquered Ireland in the 16th century. Under English rule, the use of the Irish language was portrayed as a sign of backwardness （落後）. However, when violence between Protestants and Catholics erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, the language became a symbol of Irish cultural identity. The Irish language has since won a growing favor in parts of Ireland as well as among some Irish groups in the United States.
55.增加公眾的使用以保護小語種
段落大意：增加在公共場合的使用是保護小語種的一大舉措，通常可通過教育來實現。
Groups promoting minority languages often devote their efforts to increasing the use of the language in public areas. These efforts usually focus on education, since educating children in the native language, at least in the early grades, is an important factor in maintaining the language. A notable achievement occurred in 1999, when a group of Hawaiian students graduated from high school after receiving their education entirely in Hawaiian. The students were among the first to participate in the Hawaiian language immersion （沉浸） program, which began with just 28.children in 1987.and now includes about 1,600.students in 16.public schools. These types of programs require the use of native-language in curriculum materials and improved dictionaries to enable fuller application of native language in the non-native texts.