蔣建平

隨著越來(lái)越多的人說(shuō)漢語(yǔ)、英語(yǔ)、西班牙語(yǔ)和法語(yǔ)，有些語(yǔ)言正慢慢消失。根據(jù)聯(lián)合國(guó)教育、科學(xué)及文化組織（UNESCO）的統(tǒng)計(jì)，當(dāng)今世界所使用的語(yǔ)言中，有一半可能在下個(gè)世紀(jì)消亡。拯救瀕臨消失的語(yǔ)言迫在眉睫。

1 As more and more people speak the global languages of Chinese， English， Spanish， and French， other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact， half of the languages spoken around the world today will likely die out by the next century， according to United Nations Educational， Scientific and Cultural Organization （UNESCO）.

2 In an effort to prevent language loss， scholars from a number of organizations—UNESCO and National Geographic among them—have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect. Mark Turin， a scientist at the MacMillan Center Yale University， who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas， is following that tradition. His recently published book， A Grammar of? the Thangmi Language with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture， grows out of his experience of living， working， and raising a family in a village in Nepal.

3 Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin， who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India， Nepal， Bhutan， and China. But he is not satisfied to simply record these voices before they disappear without a record. At the University of Cambridge， Turin discovered a wealth of important materials， including photographs， films， tape recordings， and field notes， which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now， through the two organizations that he has founded， the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project， Turin has started a campaign to make such documents， for the world available not just to scholars but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet， Turin's notes， the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.

Reading? Check

Choose the best answers according to the text.

Detail 1. Many scholars are making efforts to? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?.

A. set up language research centers

B. rescue disappearing languages

C. search for new languages

D. save global languages

Vocabulary 2. What does the underlined phrase “that tradition” in paragraph 2 refer to？

A. Having full records of dying languages.

B. Writing books on language teaching.

C. Telling stories about language users.

D. Living with the native speakers.

Detail 3. What is Turin's book based on？

A. The cultural studies.

B. His experience in Nepal.

C. The documents available at Yale.

D. His language research in Bhutan.

Inference 4. Which of the following can best reflect Turin's work？

A. Write， sell and donate.

B. Record， repair and reward.

C. Collect， protect and reconnect.

D. Design， experiment and report.

Language? Study

Discover the difficult sentence in the text

As more and more people speak the global languages of Chinese， English， Spanish， and French， other languages are rapidly disappearing. 隨著越來(lái)越多的人說(shuō)漢語(yǔ)、英語(yǔ)、西班牙語(yǔ)和法語(yǔ)這些全球性的語(yǔ)言，其他語(yǔ)言正在迅速消失。

【點(diǎn)石成金】本句是一個(gè)主從復(fù)合句，other languages are rapidly disappearing是主句，As more

and more...Spanish， and French是As引導(dǎo)的時(shí)間狀語(yǔ)從句。

Cutural? Background

世界上有多少種語(yǔ)言？

根據(jù)德國(guó)出版的《語(yǔ)言學(xué)及語(yǔ)言交際工具問(wèn)題手冊(cè)》，現(xiàn)在世界上已查明的有5，651種語(yǔ)言。在這些語(yǔ)言中，約有1，400種還沒(méi)有被人們承認(rèn)是獨(dú)立的語(yǔ)言，或者是正在衰亡的語(yǔ)言。在4，200多種已被承認(rèn)的獨(dú)立的語(yǔ)言中，能得到很好的研究的僅有500種，而有1，500種幾乎還沒(méi)被研究過(guò)。