World Languages are Disappearing Fast

The Hebrew language is one of the wonders of the world and has managed to survive millenniums, although I don't know the details, I understand that it's "not so distant past" recovery is a modern day marvel.

Languages....we all need them, except I think we USA citizens, well, most of us, are pretty spoiled in the language department. We really can get by almost everywhere in the world without knowing a local dialect or even another major language. At least that goes for traveling. If one wants to become immersed in a local culture, however,....knowing the local language would be essential.

But, as far as eating, sleeping, and basically getting around, those things can be done most places in the world by finding someone who knows at least a snitch of English. Even homegrown universal sign language can often work for those things....you know, hand to mouth or hands laid on head or pointing.

Here are a few paragraphs of this interesting article about the disappearing of world languages.

Scientists Race Around World to Save Dying Languages

WASHINGTON — When every known speaker of the language Amurdag gets together, there's still no one to talk to.

Native Australian Charlie Mungulda is the only person alive known to speak that language, one of thousands around the world on the brink of extinction.

From rural Australia to Siberia to Oklahoma, languages that embody the history and traditions of people are dying, researchers said Tuesday.

While there are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken around the world today, one of them dies out about every two weeks, according to linguistic experts struggling to save at least some of them.

Five hotspots where world languages are most endangered were listed Tuesday in a briefing by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and the National Geographic Society.

In addition to northern Australia, eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and the U.S. Southwest, many native languages are endangered in South America — Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia — as well as the area including British Columbia, and the states of Washington and Oregon.

Losing languages means losing knowledge, says K. David Harrison, an assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College.

"When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday."

As many as half of the current languages have never been written down, he estimated.

Thanks to Fox News for this partial article.

Maybe I should tune up on my Spanish, after all, a big percentage of our local residents speak this and I feel pretty inept when a group of guys show up at our front door wanting to buy lamb and don't speak English....Well....let's just say I've lost few sales with my language lack.

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