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发表于 2009-5-31 21:32:08
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ISSUE13.
"Many of the world's lesser-known languages are being lost as fewer and fewer people speak them. The governments of countries in which these languages are spoken should act to prevent such languages from becoming extinct."
Confronting with the situation that many lesser-known languages are extinct, some people insist that measurements should be taken to prevent such trend. Though languages partly represent humanity culture and history, however, one should take tradeoffs when deciding whether to make efforts to keep such languages, that is, saving every extinct language is unnecessary for sometimes the value of them is not worth the effort.
Language weighs much in the process of culture continuity and thus it has great value to be kept and researched. Language is such a mirror that reflects both the past and the future of the nation because it contains the history, from which the past development can be referred, and marks the characteristics, ones that can help to understand the current philosophy, of the nationality. Archeologists of all time try to entangle some history puzzles not only by studying cultural relics, but also by some existing language treasures like folks, epics, written history and etc. Such function of representing culture and history is irreplaceable. That’s why oral history is treasured now because a language, if being extinct, takes not only a way of communication, but also the history and culture of a nationality away. To keep cultural pluralism in the era of globalization, it’s the responsibility of one government to keep its extinct language from disappearance.
Language functions most in process of communication and thus if such function is replaced well by others, it’s not always necessary to keep it alive. Cultures and languages, like species, conform to the nature law as well. As a result, some languages that were eliminated by such law because of their ill profitability didn’t worth the effort to save them. Lain, for example, is such a language that was flourish in mid century and then was gradually extinct. It’s said that Latin was required course for students centuries ago because it was regarded as aristocratic language and authentic Bible was written in it. However, complex structure and appearance of other more profitable languages contributed to its finally perishing. Though studying Latin has the great meaning in research the history and Christian culture, it’s unnecessary for the government taking efforts to make Latin back to life because it’s was replaced by French and so, further, it’s not practical for the public nowadays. For those, being acquired by researchers who mean to study such certain culture is enough. Doomed to be extinct by the process of history, such language doesn’t worth, or even is unavailable, to survive by government efforts.
In the era of globalization, lesser-known language, one that presents cultural weak momentum, often has a weak financial background. As a result, improvement of the situation of lesser-known language often needs the economic support. Facing dilemma like this, taking actions to improve the financial situation rather than language condition may be more benefit. Research shows that most lesser-known languages exist in Africa and India, where the governments are baffled with the bad live condition and the problem of inadequate food. Under such circumstances, the wise action to keep the language, which at the same time keeps domestic culture, is to improve the further development of the nation and thus being able to offer economic aid for such measurement. Through deep analyze into the essence why some languages are getting lesser-known, a more complete solution should be provided before hasty taking actions to prevent the languages being extinct.
To sum up, concern about protecting language diversity is essential since it equals to culture diversity to some extent. However, government agencies must decide how best to use their limited resource to maximize profits or public welfare, no matter from material or cultural aspect. Thus, it’s not necessary for government to shoulder responsibilities to prevent every lesser-known language from becoming extinct. |
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