martes, 14 de julio de 2009

Article: Most of the world's languages `will vanish by 2100' Cultural Heritage Dominance of English, Spanish and Mandarin among new generations threat



The atlas maps the location and gives details about each of the 2,500 languages that linguists classify as endangered or are already extinct.
According to UNESCO, these languages will probably vanish before the end of the century if efforts are not made to preserve them now.
What languages are on the list, and where are they spoken?

Endangered languages are everywhere, actually. If you look up UK on the Atlas, you’ll see 12 languages. Four of these, Norn, Manx, Cornish and Alderney French, are already extinct. Scots and Welsh are rated as “unsafe,” while Yiddish, Romany, Irish and Scottish Gaelic show up as “definitely endangered.” Guernsey French and Jersey French are severely endangered.

The US has 191 endangered languages, mostly belonging to Native American tribes like the Menominee, which has 35 native speakers remaining. Sioux, the language of the great Native American chief Sitting Bull, is listed as “unsafe” with 25,000 speakers.

Then, there are languages like Silbo Gomero, spoken by about 1,000 people on La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands. This language is made up entirely of whistles, to help shepherds communicate over long distances on the island. However, Silbo Gomero may benefit from the efforts of Busuu.com, a language learning website based in Spain that teaches endangered languages to people all over the world.

*From internet._

2 comentarios:

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  2. Yharis, I was reading about vanishing languages, but didn´t find much information about the specific languages that have been disappearing or have disappeared. It is an important information for me . Also, it is a breath of relief know that there is a language learning webside that teaches endangered languages, because we lose a lot of information when a language die.

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