首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Think of the solitude felt by Marie Smith before she died earlier this year in her native Alaska, at 89. She was the last person
Think of the solitude felt by Marie Smith before she died earlier this year in her native Alaska, at 89. She was the last person
admin
2013-10-08
19
问题
Think of the solitude felt by Marie Smith before she died earlier this year in her native Alaska, at 89. She was the last person who knew the language of the Eyak people as a mother-tongue. Or imagine Ned Mandrell, who died in 1974 — he was the last native speaker of Manx, similar to Irish and Scots Gaelic. Both these people had the comfort of being surrounded, some of the time, by enthusiasts who knew something precious was vanishing and tried to record and learn whatever they could of a vanishing tongue. In remote parts of the world, dozens more people are on the point of taking to their graves a system of communication that will never be recorded or reconstructed.
Does it matter? Plenty of languages — among them Akkadian, Etruscan, Tangut and Chibcha — have gone the way of the dodo, without causing much trouble to the descendants. Should anyone lose sleep over the fact that many tongues — from Manchu(spoken in China)to Hua(Botswana)and Gwich’in(Alaska)— are in danger of suffering a similar fate?
Compared with groups who lobby to save animals or trees, campaigners who lobby to preserve languages are themselves a rare breed. But they are trying both to mitigate and publicize an alarming acceleration in the rate at which languages are vanishing. Of some 6,900 tongues spoken in the world today, some 50% to 90% could be gone by the end of the century. In Africa, at least 300 languages are in near-term danger, and 200 more have died recently or are on the verge of death. Some 145 languages are threatened in East and Southeast Asia.
Some languages, even robust ones, face an obvious threat in the shape of a political power bent on imposing a majority tongue. A youngster in any part of the Soviet Union soon realised that whatever you spoke at home, mastering Russian was the key to success.
Nor did English reach its present global status without ruthless tactics. In years past, Americans, Canadians and Australians took native children away from their families to be raised at boarding schools where English rules. In all the Celtic fringes of the British Isles there are bitter memories of children being punished for speaking the wrong language.
But in an age of mass communications, the threats to linguistic diversity are less ruthless and more spontaneous. Parents stop using traditional tongues, thinking it will be better for their children to grow up using a dominant language(such as Swahili in East Africa)or a global one(such as English, Mandarin or Spanish). And even if parents try to keep the old speech alive, their efforts can be doomed by films and computer games.
The result is a growing list of tongues spoken only by white-haired elders. A book edited by Peter Austin, an Australian linguist, gives some examples: Njerep, one of 31 endangered languages counted in Cameroon, reportedly has only four speakers left, all over 60. The valleys of the Caucasus used to be a paradise for linguists in search of unusual syntax, but Ubykh, one of the region’s baffling tongues, officially expired in 1992.
In the fourth and fifth paragraphs the author discusses that
选项
A、mastering Russian is the key to success in the Soviet Union.
B、the vanishing languages are triggered by political power.
C、English becomes a world language due to political power.
D、languages face an obvious threat in the shape of a political power.
答案
D
解析
段落细节题。第4段首句提到了甚至一些充满活力的语言也会受到政治权力倾向的影响,接下来分别以前苏联的俄语和英语的流行来说明政治对语言的影响,这两段是典型的“论点+论据”结构,故据第4段首句可知D为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/TIZO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
StagesofSecondLanguageAcquisitionStageI:(1)______Period:(1)______1)inthisstage,moststudentsunderstand(2)______th
In1896aGeorgiacouplesuingfordamagesintheaccidentaldeathoftheirtwoyearoldwastoldthatsincethechildhadmade
WhenIdecidedtoquitmyfulltimeemploymentitneveroccurredtomethatImightbecomeapartofanewinternationaltrend.
Completethegap-fillingtask.SomeofthegapsbelowmayrequireamaximumofTHREEwords.Makesuretheword(s)youfillinis
OneofthesignsoftheawakeningoftheAmericanIndiansis______.
Populationageingandtheresultingpressuresonexistingpensionsystemsconstitutesoneofthemostimportantchallengesmode
OverweightpeoplearelikelytosufferfromallthefollowingdiseasesEXCEPT
现在,我国的《红楼梦》研究,可以说是百花烂漫,盛况空前。“中国艺术研究院”设立了“红楼梦研究所”,从事这部伟大小说及其作者的专门研究。目前,已经完成了《红楼梦》新校本的校注和其他若干研究项目。此外,全国各研究机关和大专院校,也都拥有不少从事“红学”研究的专
由小学到中学,所修习的无非是一些普通的基本知识。就是大学四年,所授课业也还是相当粗浅的学识。世人常称大学为“最高学府”,这名称易滋误解,好像过此以上即无学问可言。大学的研究所才是初步研究学问的所在,在这里做学问也只能算是初涉藩篱,注重的是研究学问的方法与实
随机试题
简述某用户电视图像模糊不清的故障分析与维修。
厚度较大的焊件应选用直径较粗的焊条。()
武汉某中外合资企业进口的设备于2004年2月1日(星期四)由某轮船载运进口,该合资企业委托上海某报关行于2004年2月2日向上海海关办理转关申请手续,后由“长江号”轮船于2004年2月5日运抵武汉,并于2004年2月20日向武汉海关办理进口报关手续,该企业
资料1资料2资料3请根据以上资料,选择以下栏目的正确选项:“运输工具名称”栏:()。
不同银行的福利性收入有所不同,对于福利性收入的管理,按各家银行的章程执行。()
如果被审计单位管理层拒绝就其责任的履行情况提供书面声明,下列做法中,注册会计师认为错误的是()。
河南登封嵩山的濉阳书院是我国宋代四大书院之一。( )
中国移动有限公司在()两地上市。
《合同法》第74条规定:因债务人放弃其到期债权或者无偿转让财产,对债权人造成损害的,债权人可以请求人民法院撤销债务人的行为。债务人以明显不合理的低价转让财产,对债权人造成损害,并且受让人知道该情形的,债权人也可以请求人民法院撤销债务人的行为。撤销
α=,求A的全部特征值,并证明A可以对角化.
最新回复
(
0
)