Post by Admin on Dec 7, 2015 21:46:04 GMT
Questions on Language Loss come up in Academic and General exams.
There is a good example here: ielts-simon in answer to this question:
Several languages are in danger of extinction because they are spoken by very small numbers of people. Some people say that governments should spend public money on saving these languages, while others believe that would be a waste of money.
Discuss both these views and give your opinion.
Another question is phrased:
Some languages spoken by very few people are losing their importance and may become extinct completely. Is this a good or a bad thing? What are the reasons for this?
Below is an example of a band 9 essay. There are other ways to answer and this is longer than usual to give ideas about the causes of language loss and why I think it is a bad thing.
According to the Ethnologue 22% of the world’s languages are in danger, and a further 13% are about to become extinct. There are a number of reasons for this, and I believe that it is a negative development.
The first step in language loss is when parents start using another language, but are still able to pass on their native tongue to their children. The second step is when the children grow up but because they don’t actively use their old native language, they cannot pass it on to the next generation. One reason for this is natural loss through isolation. Minority groups within majority areas are forced to learn a new language in order to interact with the wider community because they are isolated from similar groups by geographical distance. For example, the Pahari people who live in Nepal had to learn Nepalese in order to live and gradually forgot to speak Pahari because the rest of the Pahari lived elsewhere. Another reason is assimilation, where one group gradually integrates into another one and gives up their language because they no longer need it. For example, many Azeri speakers who moved to Germany took on the German language. While they still think of themselves as Kurdish, they cannot speak their native language. A third reason is linguistic hegemony where one group dominates another and requires them to adopt a new language. For example, people wishing to live in Australia must demonstrate they can speak English and English is seen as the ‘better’ language. Gradually, immigrants lose their language because their children have to speak English at school and they have to deal with government officials and the authorities using English.
The results of such language loss are primarily a loss of cultural identity. For example, the Paharis now have Brahmin perform their religious rites. People have ceremonies, greetings, stories and even names which link them to their culture and history. For example, the nomadic Sami tribes of Norway, Sweden and Finland have over 300 words associated with snow because it is an enormous part of their culture. When the language dies, because there are few native speakers left, all those nuances would be lost as well. There is also an anthropological aspect, in that when there are no speakers of a language left, all their written records are also lost, because there is no one to read or interpret them. For linguists, there is also the loss of language diversity which makes the world a poorer place.
In conclusion, while the reasons for abandoning or losing a language are easy to understand, the losses in terms of culture, learning and linguistics are hard to recover.
There is some less common vocabulary, such as
K4: anthropological, linguistic
K5: assimilation, extinct, rites
K6: hegemony
K7: nomadic, nuances
K8: linguists
www.ieltsexchange.com
There is a good example here: ielts-simon in answer to this question:
Several languages are in danger of extinction because they are spoken by very small numbers of people. Some people say that governments should spend public money on saving these languages, while others believe that would be a waste of money.
Discuss both these views and give your opinion.
Another question is phrased:
Some languages spoken by very few people are losing their importance and may become extinct completely. Is this a good or a bad thing? What are the reasons for this?
Below is an example of a band 9 essay. There are other ways to answer and this is longer than usual to give ideas about the causes of language loss and why I think it is a bad thing.
According to the Ethnologue 22% of the world’s languages are in danger, and a further 13% are about to become extinct. There are a number of reasons for this, and I believe that it is a negative development.
The first step in language loss is when parents start using another language, but are still able to pass on their native tongue to their children. The second step is when the children grow up but because they don’t actively use their old native language, they cannot pass it on to the next generation. One reason for this is natural loss through isolation. Minority groups within majority areas are forced to learn a new language in order to interact with the wider community because they are isolated from similar groups by geographical distance. For example, the Pahari people who live in Nepal had to learn Nepalese in order to live and gradually forgot to speak Pahari because the rest of the Pahari lived elsewhere. Another reason is assimilation, where one group gradually integrates into another one and gives up their language because they no longer need it. For example, many Azeri speakers who moved to Germany took on the German language. While they still think of themselves as Kurdish, they cannot speak their native language. A third reason is linguistic hegemony where one group dominates another and requires them to adopt a new language. For example, people wishing to live in Australia must demonstrate they can speak English and English is seen as the ‘better’ language. Gradually, immigrants lose their language because their children have to speak English at school and they have to deal with government officials and the authorities using English.
The results of such language loss are primarily a loss of cultural identity. For example, the Paharis now have Brahmin perform their religious rites. People have ceremonies, greetings, stories and even names which link them to their culture and history. For example, the nomadic Sami tribes of Norway, Sweden and Finland have over 300 words associated with snow because it is an enormous part of their culture. When the language dies, because there are few native speakers left, all those nuances would be lost as well. There is also an anthropological aspect, in that when there are no speakers of a language left, all their written records are also lost, because there is no one to read or interpret them. For linguists, there is also the loss of language diversity which makes the world a poorer place.
In conclusion, while the reasons for abandoning or losing a language are easy to understand, the losses in terms of culture, learning and linguistics are hard to recover.
There is some less common vocabulary, such as
K4: anthropological, linguistic
K5: assimilation, extinct, rites
K6: hegemony
K7: nomadic, nuances
K8: linguists
www.ieltsexchange.com