Posts Tagged ‘languages’

Nearly Extinct Languages

Languages are not just for communication. It is a social product and the transmitter of culture. It means that languages are the reflection of the songs, stories, traditions of the current generation as well as the past. It is a reflection of the society and the culture we live in. Linguists would often say that to understand language, you would need to immerse yourself on the culture behind the language, and vice versa.

Languages change along the changes that society and culture experience. It is dynamic, new words are being introduced sometimes influenced by other languages. The life of a language can be measured if a population that speaks it as a primary language still continues to live. But when the population of the native speakers is gone, the language is often categorized or referred to as an extinct language. Even if there are still younger generations left, if they choose to speak a different language as their tongue, then the language could still be considered extinct.

Latin is an extinct language. Before it is included in subjects taught in school, later on, it was removed and modern and more important subjects replaced it. Even if the language is still extinct, it does not mean that nobody can speak it. There are still people who can speak Latin, but it is not used as a language for communication. But Latin inspired or infused with other words to produce more words.

Another situation that may lead to the extinction of a language would be through eradication or genocide of the entire population who speaks the tongue. There could be survivors but they be merged into other cultures and eventually adapt these cultures as their own. This would be the case of Native American tribes.

Linguists and experts have agreed that the rate of extinction of language is becoming alarming. According to the New York Times and National Geographic, there is one language dying in every fourteen days. By 2100, about 7,000 languages would be extinct. This would be more than half of the languages we currently have. There are five places where the extinction of language is happening fast, it is in Northern Australia, Central South America, North America’s upper Pacific coastal zone, Eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and southwestern United States. Sad to hear, is that there are about 500 languages which are spoken by less than ten people.

To deal with this, there are projects which aim to help prevent the extinction of languages. The first one would be identifying the places where language extinction occurs. These language recovery programs would include recording of the endangered language, and conduct studies that would help experts and linguists determine how language and cultural diversity affects the endangered language. These programs also aim to increase the awareness of the public about this issue.

Unfortunately, the public are still not aware the effects of language extinction. Some would say that the extinction of a language would be justified enough because the language is obsolete. Actually, the strong link of language to culture and the people’s world view are among the things that would be most affected.

The extinction of languages is not just about the death or loss of a different set of vocabulary and words. In a bigger sense, it would signify the loss of a culture and history imbedded on the language itself.

 

Boris Chistyakov has been writing articles for 2 years. He specializes in various topics. His recent children’s bunk beds website has latest post about princess bunk beds

Mastering Basic French Phrases Is Key To Becoming Fluent In The Language

Do you want to learn basic French phrases? If yes, then there are a couple of important points that you absolutely need to know before you start learning the language of romance.

Having a genuine interest in the French language is the most important thing. If you have such an interest then you can expect to make quick progress. However, should you lack enthusiasm for it, then the learning process will always be an uphill struggle. So, if you don’t really care for learning French, then maybe you would be better off spending your time doing something else.

There are plenty of good reasons to learn basic French phrases though, a few of which are…

1) You’ll be able to communicate with millions and millions of people that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to, as French is one of the most popular languages on the planet.

2) A whole new culture will be opened up to you. There are so many books and movies, and a lot of music, in French that you will be able to understand and appreciate.

3) Your travel options will multiply. Though you can travel to French speaking countries without speaking the language, when you do so you never really get a good feel for the country – something which you’ll certainly get when you can speak the language.

French is one of the worlds most difficult languages to learn, along with the Arabic language. However, if you just need to learn the most common sentences to convey your idea an be able to communicate on a daily basis, you can learn relatively fast. For the basics, it’s just a matter of memorizing sentences and the general speech pattern.

Do you need a real teacher to help you learn French? You don’t really need a teacher, but it’s a proven fact that spending some time with a French native will help you tremendously. Everyone is different, and if you think that you need someone to help you, get a French friend.

Also, do you know that your computer can act as a friend in order to help you learn basic French phrases? There are various CDs and downloadable software programs than can more than adequately teach you French. Downloading French lessons on to your mp3 player is something else to consider, as you can then learn French wherever you happen to be and at any time of the day or night.

Do you want to learn the basic French phrases you absolutely need to speak like a native? Click here to start with your FREE French lessons at: Rocket French Review

Franck Silvestre is a French native speaker who teach others. Visit his website today at: Learn To Speak French

languages – Who Says That It’s Hard to Teach Yourself Spanish?

language translator

“I’ve been studying English (or German or Japanese or any language) for two years, yet I still can’t string more than six words together.” Language instructors probably get tired of hearing that all the time. After all, it seems to be a recurrent trend among many language learners, whether they studied in a formal setting or used a language learning software.

Here’s the thing, though. If you’ve really studied a language for two years, you should be able to string at least six words together. In fact, a couple of weeks of memorizing phrases should let you do that. How? By learning the right words and phrases, of course.

Pricing

The Rosetta Stone learn to speak German program is an economically priced language learning software program that is comparable to other language based learning programs. What makes this program advantageous is the frequent usage of their German tutorials. This is a very helpful feature in any software program, but especially so when undertaking a challenge of this type.

It is your choice. Some people don’t learn as well from looking at lessons on a computer as they do from holding a book in their hands. You can also teach yourself the language simply by using audio CD’s or cassettes.

Say someone asks you for the time and you answer. How about asking them something from your memorized phrases, like a good restaurant in town? When they answer, ask them if that is near the bus station (surely, you know how to ask where the bus station is – reworking that sentence to ask the modified question shouldn’t be too hard). If they ask you a question like where you are from, you can answer and ask them where they are from originally too. It’s this give and take that makes conversations flow and it’s something that you can usually manage even with just a small store of memorized vocabulary

Resource Author Francisco R. Higueras
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