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Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
语言是一座城市，每个人都为这座城市的建设增添了砖瓦。
——拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生
When Carlos Westez died at the age of 76, a language died, too. Westez, more commonly known as Red Thunde Cloud, was the last speaker of the Native American language, Catawba .
Anyone who wants to hear various songs of the Catawba can contact the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where back in the 1940s, Red Thunde Cloud recorded a series of songs for future generations. Some people might want to try to learn some of these songs by heart. The are all that is lef of the Catawba language. Th language that people used to speak is gone forever.
We are all aware of the damage that modern industry can do to the world’s ecology .①However, few people are aware of the impact that widely spoken languages have on other languages and ways of life. English has spread all over the world. Chinese, Spanish, Russian,and Hindi have become powerful languages, as well. As these languages become more powerful,their use as tools of business and culture increases. When this happens, hundreds of languages that are spoken by only a few people die out.
Scholars believe that there are about 6,000 languages around the world, but more than half of them could die out within the next 100 years. Ther are many examples. Araki is a native language of the island of Vanuatu, located in the Pacifi Ocean. It is spoken by only a few older adults, so like Catawba, Araki will soon disappear. Many languages of Ethiopia will have the same fate because each one has only a few speakers. Papua New Guinea is an extremely rich source of differen languages, but more than 100 of them are in danger of extinction. In the Americas, 100 languages, each of which has fewer than 300 speakers, also are dying out.
Red Thunde Cloud was one of the firs to recognize the threat of language death and try to do something about it. He was not actually born into the Catawba tribe, and the language was not his mother tongue. However, he was a frequent visitor to the Catawba reservation in South Carolina, where he learned the language. The songs he sang for the Smithsonian Institution helped to make Native American music popular. Now he is gone, and the language is dead.
What does it mean when a language disappears? When a plant or insect or animal species dies, it is easy to understand what we’ve lost and to appreciate what this means for the balance of the natural world.②However, language is only a product of the mind. To be the last remaining speaker of a language, like Red Thunder Cloud, must be a lonely destiny, almost as strange and terrible as being the last surviving member of a dying species. For the rest of us, when a language dies, we lose the possibility of a unique way of seeing and describing the world.
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① We are all aware of the damage that modern industry can do to the world’s ecology. 我们都知道现代工业破坏了世界生态环境。
② When a plant or insect or animal species dies, it is easy to understand what we’ve lost and to appreciate what this means for the balance of the natural world. 当某一植物、昆虫或动物物种消失，我们很容易理解人类失去了什么，并重视这一失去对自然界的平衡意味着什么。
1. What do we know about Red Thunde Cloud?
A. His real name was Carklos Westez.
B. He spoke the Catawba language, but he was not a native Catawba.
C. He earned a living by singing Catawba songs.
2. What is true about the Catawba language?
A. People still speak the language in South Carolina.
B. Nobody speaks the language any more.
C. You can listen to songs in the language.
3. Why do some languages disappear?
A. Other languages become more powerful.
B. Governments want everybody to speak one language.
C. Thes languages don’t have many native speakers.
4. What will happen to languages in the future?
A. Thousand of languages will die out.
B. Languages that are spoken by few people will probably disappear.
C. Ther will be more languages in the future than in the past.
5. Which of the statements cannot be inferred from the text?
A. A language that is not used in business is more likely to disappear.
B. Languages may die when people move away from their native lands.
C. Th death of a language is a loss for the whole world.
Find the words in the box in the reading. The complete the sentences.
Imagine that you are the last surviving person on earth who can speak Chinese, and that tomorrow you will die of aging. Write a diary about your imaginary last day alive.