1. What may new urban hybrid languages help to do while many rural languages are going extinct?
2. According to the passage, what are losing their practical use?
3. How many of journal literature in some scientific fields is printed in English?
4. Scott Montgomery- a Seattle-based geologist and of The Chicago Guide to Science—shows that English has itself as the world language for science.
5. Montgomery the future will almost certainly see a continued of English use in science, in international settings, though not to the final of other tongues.
6. More and more scientists who are non-native of English will need to multilingual," Montgomery said. " This an educational burden in some sense, but one that has much precedent in the cases of Greek, medieval Latin, and medieval Arabic.
Background Information 背景信息
依据美国刚刚出版的《世界年鉴及事件》,在全球十大语言中,北京普通话是全球使用人数最多的语言,约有八亿七千四百万人,印度语以三亿六千六百人排第二,英语则以三亿四千万人排第三。随后是西班牙语的三亿两千两百万人,孟加拉语两亿零七百万人,阿拉伯语两亿零一百万人,葡萄牙语一亿七千六百万人,俄语一亿六千七百万人,日语一亿两千五百万人及德语一亿人。
英语居联合国的五种官方语言之首,也是世界上的通用语言,由于普遍流行,经常被误认为是当今世界上使用人口最多的语种。
Words & Phrases
词汇与短语
Words:
diversity 差异,多样性
geologist 地质学者
hybrid 混合的
medieval 中世纪的
multilingual 使用多语种语言的
precedent 先例
preferred 首选的
solidarity 团结
spawn 大量生产;产卵
Phrases:
around the world 全世界
go extinct 趋于灭绝
in some sense 在某种意义上