Another Kind of Extinction (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Another Kind of Extinction

By PAUL C. CASTRIGANO
Published: Wednesday, May 02, 2012
US

How many of the world’s languages can you name? No, seriously, try it out.
Take out a piece of paper and just write until your brain cannot produce
another language. My guess is that you have about twenty or thirty
languages, maximum, and most of those came from taking country names and
adding the appropriate suffix. If you named thirty, then congratulations:
That’s a staggering 0.4 percent of the world’s nearly 7,000 languages.

Human communication and language is a wondrous achievement. Unfortunately,
many of these languages are dying out, due mainly to globalization and the
worldwide reduction to fewer and fewer linguae francae. In fact, within a
century, more than half of the world’s 7,000 languages are likely to be
extinct, and once a language is gone, there is no way to bring it back
completely. Language extinction poses a grave cultural threat to our
species, and we should take far stronger stances and measures for ensuring
their preservation.

Access full article below:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/5/2/harvard-languages-dying/
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