江西 侯昌瑋

每種語(yǔ)言都能表現(xiàn)使用者所在民族的世界觀、思維方式、社會(huì)特性以及文化、歷史等，都是人類珍貴的非物質(zhì)文化遺產(chǎn)。

篇幅：322詞 難度：★★★ 建議用時(shí)：6分鐘

1A new study warns 1,500 endangered languages could no longer be spoken by the end of this century. The study, led by the Australian National University (ANU), identified predictors that put endangered languages at high risk.

2Co-author Professor, Lindell Bromham, said that of the world's 7,000 recognized languages, around half were currently endangered. “We found that without immediate intervention (干預(yù)), language loss could triple in the next 40 years. And by the end of this century, 1,500 languages could cease to be spoken.”

3Their study found the widest range of factors ever putting endangered languages under pressure. One finding was that more years of schooling increased the level of language endangerment. The researchers said it showed that we need to build curricula that support bilingual education, promoting both native language proficiency as well as use of regionally-dominant languages. “Across the 51 factors or predictors we investigated,we also found some really unexpected and surprising pressure points. This included road density,” Professor Bromham said. “Contact with other local languages is not the problem—in fact, languages in contact with many other native languages tend to be less endangered. “But we found that the more roads there are, connecting the country to cities,and villages to towns, the higher the risk of languages being endangered. It's as if roads are helping dominant languages replace other smaller languages.”

4Professor Bromham said the study's findings were a vital reminder that more action was urgently needed to preserve at-risk languages. He added,“When a language is lost,or is ‘sleeping’ as we say for languages that are no longer spoken, we lose so much of our human cultural diversity. Every language is brilliant in its own way. Many of the languages predicted to be lost this century still have fluent speakers, so there is still the chance to invest in supporting communities to bring native languages back to life and keep them strong for future generations.”

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Language Study

Difficult sentence in the text

One finding was that more years of schooling increased the level of language endangerment. 研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，受教育的年限越長(zhǎng)，語(yǔ)言瀕危的程度越高。

【點(diǎn)石成金】句中的that引導(dǎo)的是表語(yǔ)從句。 如：

One advantage of solar energy is that it will never run out. 太陽(yáng)能的其中一個(gè)優(yōu)點(diǎn)是它永遠(yuǎn)也不會(huì)耗盡。