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Why
are languages going extinct so rapidly?
Languages are abandoned when speakers come to think of them as
socially inferior, tied to the past, traditional, backward, or
economically stagnant. The current rapid decline of approximately
one language every two weeks appears to be unprecedented in human history.
What does humanity lose when a language dies?
A
vast repository of human knowledge about the natural world, plants,
animals, ecosystems, and cultural traditions is in the language. Every language
contains the collective history of an entire people.
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