Cambridge Studied the Future of the World's Languages, and the Results Are Alarming (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

*Cambridge Studied the Future of the World's Languages, and the Results Are
Alarming*

 By Eileen Shim <http://mic.com/profiles/87869/eileen-shim>  September 4,
2014

*The news: *There are currently 7,000 languages
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/language-extinction-economic-development_n_5759850.html>
spoken around the world, with one dying off about every two weeks. Now
researchers say that 25% of the world's languages face extinction in the
next few decades, and there's a surprising reason behind it — economic
development.

In a new study published Wednesday in the *Proceedings of Royal Society B*,
<http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1793/20141574.full> Tatsuya
Amano, a conservation scientist at Cambridge University, took the
ecological tracking methods used for endangered species and applied them to
languages. Using this methodology, his team identified hotspots where
languages were in danger of disappearing, just like animal species are.

What he found was surprising: "Both are seriously threatened, and the
distribution of linguistic and biological diversity is very similar," Amano
told *Live Science*
<http://www.livescience.com/47657-25-percent-of-global-languages-are-threatened.html?cmpid=514627_20140903_30932756>.
"Of course languages and species are fundamentally different in many
aspects, but I thought I might be able to contribute to this urgent problem
— language endangerment — using what I have learnt."

Access full article below:
http://mic.com/articles/97956/cambridge-studied-the-future-of-the-world-s-languages-and-the-results-are-alarming
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20140905/d5afc588/attachment.htm>