Mind Your Languages

 

PART 7: You are going to read a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A–G the one which fits each gap (41–46). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Mind Your Languages

Thousands of the world's languages are dying, taking to the grave not just words but records of civilisations and cultures that we may never fully know or understand. Linguists have calculated that of the 6,000 languages currently spoken worldwide most will disappear over the next 100 years. As many as 1,000 languages have died in the past 400 years. Conversely, the handful of major international languages are forging ahead.

Gaps 41–46

(Article text with six missing paragraphs.)

Paragraphs A–G

A

This is one of the things worrying linguists working in Fiji in the South Pacific. There are hundreds of known remedies in Fiji's forests. The guava leaf relieves diarrhoea, the udi tree eases sore throats, and hibiscus leaf tea is used by expectant mothers. There are possibly several more yet to be discovered.

B

'I accept this,' says Kortlandt, 'but at the very least, we can record as much as we can of these endangered languages before they die out altogether. Such an undertaking naturally requires support from international organisations.' But what progress is being made in this respect?

C

Kortlandt elaborates further: 'If you want to understand the human species, you have to take the full range of human thought into consideration. The disappearance of a language means the disappearance of a culture. It is not only words that disappear, but also knowledge about many things.'

D

To non-linguists while particular stories like this can be fascinating, it must seem odd to get worked up about the broader issue. Why waste so much time saving languages spoken by so few? Why look back instead of forward?

E

For example, Chinese is now spoken by 1,000 million people and English by 350 million. Spanish is spoken by 250 million people and growing fast.

F

'There are about 200 languages spoken in this area, but only a few have been properly described,' says Kortlandt. 'The problem is it can take years to document a language. We are generally happy when we have a group of texts we can read and understand with the help of a reliable grammar and dictionary.'

G

This often means trekking to some of the most inaccessible parts of the Earth and can require consummate diplomacy in dealing with remote tribes, some of which may be meeting outsiders for the first time and may be wary of strangers asking for so much information about their language.