Endangered Languages

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What Language Did the Old Pirates speak?
(Endangered Languages)
As the world becomes more and more unified, there is nothing unusual in the fact that languages across the world have been disappearing steadily over the past centuries. According to estimates, there are still approximately 6500 languages in the world and over half of them will be extinct within the next 100 years (Crystal 380-84). In other words, many languages are in danger of disappearing. For example, a language becomes endangered when its native speakers no longer pass it on to the next generation, or when there are no more native speakers left in order to pass the language on. Consequently the language then becomes known as a “dead language” (Crystal 380). Furthermore, a language only becomes extinct when there are no existing speakers of it. Although there are no established guidelines on how to identify whether or not a language is endangered, there are several indicators according to Christopher Mosely from UNESCO Atlas Of The World Languages In Danger. These are given by the “degree of endangerment”, and according to the “Intergenerational Language Transmissions”, that happen in that endangered language. Some examples are the number of living speakers, the mean age of native and fluent speakers, and the percentage of the youngest generation acquiring fluency with the language in question. In contrast to these three criteria’s, each can influence how a language is evaluated, but one indicator does not always necessitate the other two (Mosely).
On the contrary, I believe that an endangered language can be saved or revived by governments, as well as international organizations. This could be done through the implementation of academic programs, dictionaries, li...

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...eakers, all intended to maintain an active interest in and use of the language. The support of government administrations for this endangered language by funding the above programs shows the dedication to preserve the North Frisian language in the future.

Works Cited

Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. 3rd ed. Cambridge , Cambridge Univ., 2010. Print.
Frisian in Germany: North Frisian ("Friisk"). Research Centre of Multilingualism, www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/friso/an/i3/i3.html#top. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 3rd ed. Paris, UNESCO Publishing. www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas, Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
Salminen, Tapani. UNESCO RED BOOK ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: EUROPE,
23 Feb. 1996, www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html#NFrisian. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.

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