The world’s native languages are dying out at an unprecedented(空前的) rate, taking with them irreplaceable(不能替代的) knowledge about the natural world, according to a new study.
The study identified five global “hot spots” where languages are vanishing faster than anywhere else ---- eastern Siberia, northern Australia, central South America, the US state of Oklahoma and the US Pacific Northwest. “Languages are suffering a global extinction crisis that greatly goes beyond the pace of species extinction,” linguistics(语言学的) professor David Harrison noted, who said half of the world’s 7,000 languages were expected to disappear before the end of the century.
Native people had an intimate(详尽的) knowledge of their environment that was lost when their language disappeared, along with other certain things often unfamiliar to us, Harrison stressed. “Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it’s only in people’s heads,” he said. “We are seeing in front of our eyes the loss of the human knowledge base.”
Harrison was one of a team of linguists who carried out the study. The researchers traveled to Australia this year to study native languages, some of the most endangered. According to Harrison, in Australia, they were heartened to see a woman in her 80s who was one of the only three remaining speakers of the Yawuru language passing on her knowledge to schoolchildren. He said such inter-generational exchanges were the only way native languages could survive. “The children had elected to take this course, no one forced them,” he said. “When we asked them why they were learning it, they said,‘This is a dying language, we need to learn it’.” Also, while there they found a man with knowledge of the Amurdag language, which had previously been thought extinct.
The researchers said all five of the hot spots identified were areas that had been successfully colonized and where a dominant language such as Spanish or English was threatening native tongues.
【小题1】What does this text mainly talk about?A．A study on native languages endangered.B．The knowledge of native languages.C．People’s efforts in saving native languages.D．Harrison and his study on languages.【小题2】The underlined word“vanishing”in the second paragraph can be best replaced by .A．developingB．changingC．increasingD．Disappearing【小题3】According to Harrison, language extinction .A．causes the researchers lots of worriesB．speeds up the pace of species extinctionC．threatens the existing of Spanish and EnglishD．brings about a loss of knowledge about the environment【小题4】Which of the following can be described as good news?A．Native languages became less endangered in Australia.B．A man was found with knowledge of the Amurdag language.C．Researchers were well received by native people in Australia.D．Many schoolchildren showed interest in the Yawuru language.A
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(答案→)A
解析：本文介绍了研究全球本地语言消失所带来的严重影响，人们挽救本土语言的努力和使本地语言上消失的原因。
【小题1】推断题：通读全文后可知本文主要研究全球本地语言消失所带来的严重影响，人们挽救本土语言的努力和使本地语言上消失的原因，故选A。
【小题2】细节题： developing发展；changing改变；increasing增加；Disappearing消失。通读全文可知是巨额本土语言正在消亡，只有D项语文以最贴切，故选D。
【小题3】细节题：根据Native people had an intimate(详尽的) knowledge of their environment that was lost when their language disappeared当土著人的语言消失的时候，他们关于环境的详细知识也消失了，故选D。
【小题4】推断题：B、D项在文中均有提到，A、C项未被提及，故A、C是错误的。根据while there they found a man with knowledge of the Amurdag language, which had previously been thought extinct他们发现有一个了解Amurdag语言的人,此前这种语言被认为已经灭绝。故这个消息是好消息，故选B。