The world’s languages are disappearing at an ____ rate. The ____ of the world’s languages is a curse rather than a blessing. If only we had just one language in the world, we would all be better ____ A dying language will cause conflict rather than ____ it, ____ not between countries but rather within the individuals who have ____ their ancestors’ language. Many different skills and characteristics ____ a species to survive in different environments, and the need to ____ linguistic ____ stands on the ____ of the argument. It is the children, ____ in the new language and in a much better socio-economic position, with battles over land claims and civil rights behind them, who begins to reflect on (and feel ____ guilt over) the ____ they have lost. If a ____ of effort had been devoted to language ____, it would have left the option open for future generations to ____ their own choice. Even ____ a people stay put, their language may still die as a result of cultural ____. At first, there is ____ on the people to speak the dominant language. Finally, bilingualism starts to ____, with the old language giving way to the new. This leads to the third stage, in which the younger generation finds its old language less and less ____. The ____ statistics are frightening. No ____ so many languages are ____ danger of dying. Sometimes what we learn from a language is ____ practical, as when we discover new medical treatments from the folk medicine of an ____ people. Sometimes it is intellectual, as when the links between languages tell us something about the movements of early ____. And of course, very often it is linguistic: we learn something new about language itself - the behaviour that makes us ____ human. We should care about dying languages for the same reason that we care when a species of animal or plant dies. It ____ the diversity of our planet. ____ of language, we are talking about intellectual and cultural ____, not biological diversity, but the issues are the same.

Upstream WB Unit 4

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