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  3. Typically, the death of a language is discussed in the same vein as the disappearance of moas and passenger pigeons. The problem

Typically, the death of a language is discussed in the same vein as the disappearance of moas and passenger pigeons. The problem

admin2016-10-15  60
问题     Typically, the death of a language is discussed in the same vein as the disappearance of moas and passenger pigeons. The problem is actually more rampant than species attrition: A hundred years from now, today’s 6,000 languages will likely number only 600.
    But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
    Now, to be clear, as someone who has taught himself languages as a hobby since childhood, I hardly rejoice when a language dies. Languages can put concepts together in ways more fascinatingly different from English than most of us are aware. Yet supposing that we could keep 6,000 languages alive is like supposing that we could stop, say, ice from getting soft under the sun.
    As people speaking many indigenous languages migrate to cities, inevitably they learn globally dominant languages like English and use them with one another. Their children may use their parents’ indigenous languages at home. But they never knew the lifestyle that those languages were born to express, and will be more comfortable in the public language of the world in which they grow up. They will speak mostly the public one to their own children. This is how languages die.
    Many hope that we can turn back the tide with programs to revive indigenous languages, but the sad fact is that this will almost never be seriously effective. I once taught a class of Native Americans their ancestral language in a summer program. This had the positive effect of helping them feel connected to their ancestors, but there was no possible way they were going to be able to converse in the language.
    In any case, language death is actually a healthy outcome of diversity. If people speaking different languages truly come together, as the Beatles urged us, then they need to speak a common language. Then the age-old process begins: The first generation is more comfortable in the old language, the second uses it as an at-home language and the third knows only some words and phrases. But cultural diversity persists despite the common language.
    When people use their distinct language down the generations, It’s usually bad, indicating discrimination or segregation—precisely what "diversity" fans would otherwise consider a scourge. Jews in shtetls spoke Yiddish at home and other languages elsewhere because they lived in Jewish ghettos, not because they delighted in being bilingual.
    I hope that dying languages can be recorded and described, but their individual deaths are not something to be mourned. Indeed a single "world" language would not be in itself catastrophic.
According to the text, an indigenous language ______ if people speaking it are isolated in a small area.
选项 A、develops rapidly
B、perishes gradually
C、will eventually die
D、continues to be alive
答案D
解析 根据倒数第二段中的“When people use their distinct language down the generations，…indicating discrimination or segregation…”，D应为答案。
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