The Future Of The World's Language IELTS Reading

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́ ch IELTS Actual Test 5 - Test 5 - Passage 3 với trải
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từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.

DOL IELTS Đình Lực Feb 28, 2022

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Bài đọc (reading passage)
The future of the World's Language

Of the world’s 6,500 living languages, around half are expected to the out by the end of this century,
according to UNESCO. Just 1 1 are spoken by more than half of the earth’s population, so it is little wonder
that those used by only a few are being left behind as we become a more homogenous, global society. In
short, 95 percent of the world’s languages are spoken by only five percent of its population—a remarkable
level of linguistic diversity stored in tiny pockets of speakers around the world. Mark Turin, a university
professor, has launched WOLP (World Oral Language Project) to prevent the language from the brink of
extinction.

He is trying to encourage indigenous communities to collaborate with anthropologists around the world to
record what he calls “oral literature” through video cameras, voice recorders and other multimedia tools by
awarding grants from a £30,000 pot that the project has secured this year. The idea is to collate this
literature in a digital archive that can be accessed on demand and will make the nuts and bolts of lost
cultures readily available.

For many of these communities, the oral tradition is at the heart of their culture. The stories they tell are
creative as well as communicative. Unlike the languages with celebrated written traditions, such as
Sanskrit, Hebrew and Ancient Greek, few indigenous communities have recorded their own languages or
ever had them recorded until now.

The project suggested itself when Turin was teaching in Nepal. He wanted to study for a PhD in
endangered languages and, while discussing it with his professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands,
was drawn to a map on his tutor’s wall. The map was full of pins of a variety of colours which represented
all the world’s languages that were completely undocumented. At random, Turin chose a “pin” to
document. It happened to belong to the Thangmi tribe, an indigenous community in the hills east of
Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. “Many of the choices of anthropologists and linguists who work on these
traditional field-work projects are quite random,” he admits.

Continuing his work with the Thangmi community in the 1 990s, Turin began to record the language he
was hearing, realising that not only was this language and its culture entirely undocumented, it was known
to few outside the tiny community. He set about trying to record their language and myth of origins. “I
wrote 1,0 00 pages of grammar in English that nobody could use—but I realised that wasn’t enough. It
wasn’t enough for me, it wasn’t enough for them. It simply wasn’t going to work as something for the
community. So then I produced this trilingual word list in Thangmi, Nepali and English.”

In short, it was the first ever publication of that language. That small dictionary is still sold in local schools
for a modest 20 rupees, and used as part of a wider cultural regeneration process to educate children
about their heritage and language. The task is no small undertaking: Nepal itself is a country of massive
ethnic and linguistic diversity, home to 1 00 languages from four different language families. What’s more,
even fewer ethnic Thangmi speak the Thangmi language. Many of the community members have taken to
speaking Nepali, the national language taught in schools and spread through the media, and community
elders are dying without passing on their knowledge.

Despite Turin’s enthusiasm for his subject, he is baffled by many linguists’ refusal to engage in the issue he
is working on. “Of the 6,500 languages spoken on Earth, many do not have written traditions and many of
these spoken forms are endangered,” he says. “There are more linguists in universities around the world
than there are spoken languages—but most of them aren’t working on this issue. To me it’s amazing that
in this day and age, we still have an entirely incomplete image of the world’s linguistic diversity. People do
PhDs on the apostrophe in French, yet we still don’t know how many languages are spoken.”

“When a language becomes endangered, so too does a cultural world view. We want to engage with
indigenous people to document their myths and folklore, which can be harder to find funding for if you are
based outside Western universities.”

Yet, despite the struggles facing initiatives such as the World Oral Literature Project, there are historical
examples that point to the possibility that language restoration is no mere academic pipe dream. The
revival of a modern form of Hebrew in the 1 9th century is often cited as one of the best proofs that
languages long dead, belonging to small communities, can be resurrected and embraced by a large
number of people. By the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the
Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. It is now spoken by more than seven million
people in Israel.

Yet, despite the difficulties these communities face in saving their languages, Dr Turin believes that the
fate of the world’s endangered languages is not sealed, and globalization is not necessarily the nefarious
perpetrator of evil it is often presented to be. “I call it the globalisation paradox: on the one hand
globalisation and rapid socio-economic change are the things that are eroding and challenging diversity.
But on the other, globalisation is providing us with new and very exciting tools and facilities to get to
places to document those things that globalisation is eroding. Also, the communities at the coal-face of
change are excited by what globalisation has to offer.”

In the meantime, the race is on to collect and protect as many of the languages as possible, so that the
Rai Shaman in eastern Nepal and those in the generations that follow him can continue their traditions and
have a sense of identity. And it certainly is a race: Turin knows his project’s limits and believes it inevitable
that a large number of those languages will disappear. “We have to be wholly realistic. A project like ours
is in no position, and was not designed, to keep languages alive. The only people who can help languages
survive are the people in those communities themselves. They need to be reminded that it’s good to
speak their own language and I think we can help them do that—becoming modem doesn’t mean you
have to lose your language.”
Câu hỏi (questions)
Question 1 - 5
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.

Of the world’s 6,500 living languages, about half of them are expected to be extinct. Most of the
world’s languages are spoken by a 1 of people. However, Professor Turin set up a project
WOLP to prevent 2 of the languages. The project provides the community with
3 to enable people to record their endangered languages. The oral tradition has great
cultural 4 . An important 5 between languages spoken by few people and
languages with celebrated written documents existed in many communities.

A similarity

B significance

C funding

D minority

E education

F difference

G education

H diversity

I majority

J disappearance

Question 6 - 9
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

6 Turin argued that anthropologists and linguists usually think carefully before selecting an area to
research.
 7 Turin concluded that the Thangmi language had few similarities with other languages.

8 Turin has written that 1 000-page document was inappropriate for Thangmi community

9 Some Nepalese schools lack resources to devote to language teaching.

Question 1 0 - 1 4
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.

10 Why does Turin say people do PhDs on the apostrophe in French?

A He believes that researchers have limited role in the research of languages.

B He compares the methods of research into languages.

C He thinks research should result in a diverse cultural outlook.

D He holds that research into French should focus on more general aspects.

11 What is discussed in the ninth paragraph?

A Forces driving people to believe endangered languages can survive.

B The community where people distrust language revival.

C The methods of research that have improved language restoration.

D Initiatives the World Oral Literature Project is bringing to Israel.

12 How is the WOLP’s prospect?

A It would not raise enough funds to achieve its aims.

B It will help keep languages alive.

C It will be embraced by a large number of people.

D It has chance to succeed to protect the engendered languages.

13 What is Turin’s main point of globalisation?

A Globalisation is the main reason for endangered language.

B Globalisation has both advantages and disadvantages.

C We should have a more critical view of globalisation.

D We should foremost protect our identity in face of globalisation.

14 What does Turin suggest that community people should do?

A Learn other languages.

B Only have a sense of identity.

C Keep up with the modem society without losing their language.

D Join the race to protect as many languages as possible but be realistic.

Answer key (đáp án và giải thích)

1 minority [Link]
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2 disappearance [Link]
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3 funding [Link]
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4 significance [Link]
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5 difference [Link]
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6 False [Link]
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7 Not Given [Link]

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8 True [Link]
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9 Not Given [Link]

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10 A [Link]
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11 A [Link]
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12 D [Link]
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13 B [Link]
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14 C [Link]
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