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C
Many PhD students studying minority languages lack the
resources to develop their language skills, with the result
that they have to rely on interpreters and translators to
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communicate with speakers of the language they are
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studying. This, I believe, has a detrimental effect on the

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quality of their research. At the same time, they have to
struggle against the frequently expressed opinion that 5IFSF BSF KVTU TQFBLFST PG 6EFHF MFGU JO
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minority languages serve no useful purpose and should be 4JCFSJB BOE NPTU PG UIFN BSF PWFS ZFBST PME
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allowed to die a natural death. Such a view fails to take
into account the fact that a unique body of knowledge
and culture, built up over thousands of years, is contained 4 Now do the exam task. For questions 1–4, choose
in a language and that language extinction and species from the extracts A–D. The extracts may be chosen
extinction are different facets of the same process. Th ey more than once.
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are part of an impending global catastrophe which is
beginning to look unavoidable. 8IJDI FYUSBDU
shares Extract B’s view of the economic
D signifi cance of major languages? 1
A healthy language is one which children learn to speak, expresses a different view from the others
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so that however many adults use the language, if young regarding the need to preserve minority 2
people do not acquire it, it will not survive. While the languages?
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disappearance of a language may be a tragedy for the takes a different view from the others
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people who speak it, it may appear to be an event of regarding the future of small languages?
little importance to others. However, I would argue that
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language diversity is as necessary as biological diversity takes a similar view to Extract C on the
and that we are simply not aware of all the things we lose effect of language disappearance?
when a language disappears. When an animal or plant
becomes extinct, we seldom realise how its existence 5 Work in small groups.
might have benefi ted us. The same is true for many small

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languages. Moreover, the resources to prevent their loss are t Which extract(s) do you think it would be interesting to
unlikely to ever be available simply because the economic read more of? Why?
t What can be done to keep endangered languages

benefits of keeping them alive cannot be demonstrated.
alive?
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