The death of languages is not a new phenomenon. Languages usually have a short life span(壽命) as well as a very high death rate. Only a few, including Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, have lasted more than 2,000 years.

What is new, however, is the speed at which they are dying out. Europe’s colonial ruling caused a sharp decrease in language kinds, reducing at least 15 percent of all languages spoken at the time. Over the last 300 years, Europe has lost a dozen, and Australia has only 20 left of the 250 spoken at the end of the 18th century.

The rise of nation-states has also been decisive in selecting national languages. By making great efforts to establish an official language in education, the media, national governments have tried to reduce minority languages.

This process of language standardization(標準化) has been improved by industrialization and scientific progress, which have created new methods of communication that are fast, straightforward and practical. Language kinds came to be seen as an difficulty to trade and the spread of knowledge. Monolingualism(單種語言) became an perfect choice.

More recently, the internationalization of financial markets, the spread of information by electronic media and other aspects of globalization have led to the danger to “small” languages. A language not on the Internet is a language that “no longer exists” in the modern world. It is out of the game.

The serious effects of the death of languages are clear. First of all, it is possible that if we all ended up speaking the same language, our brains would lose some of their natural functions for language inventiveness. We would never be able to figure out the origins of human language or resolve the mystery of “the first language”. As each language dies, a chapter of human history closes.

Multilingualism(多語種) is the most right solution. The destruction of the first will lead to the loss of the second. Creating a language without any links to a people’s culture and way of life stifles the expression of their language gift. A language is not only used as the main instrument of human communication. It also expresses the world vision of those who speak it, their ways of using knowledge. To safeguard languages is an urgent matter.

1.Which of the following does not contribute to the death of languages?

A. Colonial conquests of Europe

B. The rise of nation-states

C. Advances in science and industrialization

D. The increase of human population

2.The underlined word “ stifles” in the last paragraph probably means “_____”.

A. kills B. cheer C. creates D. improve

3.The serious effects of the death of languages include all except that_______.

A. People would fail to understand how languages started

B. Monolingualism would lead to the loss of multiculturalism

C. Language kinds would become an difficulty to globalization

D. Human brains would become less creative in languages

4.What is the author’s purpose of writing this passage?

A. To call people’s attention to the importance of language preservation.

B. To warn people of the negative result of globalization.

C. To explain the reasons why languages are dying out.

D. To argue how important it is for people to speak more languages.

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