‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old tradition.’ ‘People lose faith in their culture’ he says. Why do people reject the language of their parent? It begins with a crisis of confidence when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director o the Alaska Native Language Center, in Fairbanks. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers, but how old they are. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Only 250 languages have more than a million speaker, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. Isolation breeds linguistic diversity as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. “It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’ “At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world”, says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations - that’s one language lost every ten days.
Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time. Street sign, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Most of its speakers are middle-age or elderly. In the Native American Navajo nation which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Many minority languages are on the danger list. You should spend about 20 minutes on Question 1-13 which are based on the Reading Passage below. IELTS Academic Reading Passage - Lost for Words 'truthful words are not beautiful beautiful words are not truthful' espouser.Old words from which modern words are derived.The first words of the five longest across answers are the first words of it.Group of words having a meaning not obvious from the words e.g over the moon.Words made from re-arranging other words.Corny sam makes words from first letters of other words.Words that may precede the first words of 18-, 40- and 62-across and 3- and 32-down.Words that connect each pair of four-letter words intersecting at a circle.Words that can precede the last words of 19-, 39- and 60-across.(note: each theme answer is a word that can divide into two smaller words-like dozen, do, and zen-and all three words are defined in a "clue sentence." your job in each sentence is to separate the three real clues from the extraneous words.) Only men like al can land in foulness and like it.Confused plot involves this person crossing america.Perplexed when you dream where you'd expect to dream?.Bewildered, given sack for welcoming australian natives.Cleverness quick wittedness inventiveness.Campese, former australian rugby player who was inducted into the world rugby hall of fame in 2013.Jonah, former new zealand rugby player who was inducted into the international rugby hall of fame in 2007.Gareth, former welsh rugby player who was inducted into the international rugby hall of fame in 1997.Carter, former new zealand rugby player who was a three time international rugby board player of the year.
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