Globalization Helps Preserve Endangered Languages (fwd link)

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*Globalization Helps Preserve Endangered Languages*

A globalized internet, with Skype, YouTube and WordPress, connects and
preserves language diversity
Mark Turin
YaleGlobal, 3 December 2013

NEW YORK: No one should be too surprised to overhear an endangered language
spoken in the heart of Manhattan – endangered because their speakers have
ceased to use them or are simply dying. Home to more than 800 languages –
more than a tenth of the world’s total number of living speech forms – the
five boroughs of New York City are the most linguistically diverse urban
settlement on earth.

Whether inside iconic yellow cabs or among passengers chatting in the
colorful No. 7 train somewhere between Flushing and Times Square, people in
this bustling metropolis speak endangered languages every day. The clicks
and tones that cabbie just used on the phone to his cousin may well have
been in a language at risk of disappearing.

Access full article below:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/globalization-helps-preserve-endangered-languages
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