经济发展正导致一些语言的消失

中等

高中三年级

说明文

语言学习

经济发达国家的一些少数民族语言正面临消失的危机。经济发展了，落后地区的人们纷纷迁移，适应快速发展的经济需要，同时也适应了处于支配地位的语言，逐渐忘却了属于自己的但处于劣势的语言。

Economic development is driving the extinction of some languages, scientists believe.

科学家们认为，经济发展使一些语言消失。

A study has found that minority languages in the most developed parts of the world, including North America, Europe and Australia, are most at threat.

一项研究发现，世界大多数发达地区，包括北美洲、欧洲、澳大利亚的少数民族语言大部分处于威胁中。

The researchers say that efforts to protect these languages need to be focused on these areas. Tatsuya Amano, from the University of Cambridge, said: “World languages are now rapidly being lost. This is a very serious situation. We wanted to know how the extinction is distributed globally and what the main drivers of this are.”

研究者称，保护语言的行动应该重点关注这些地区。剑桥大学的龙谷天野说：“世界语言正在快速消失。这是一种非常严重的情况。我们想知道这种消失在全球分布的情况，以及导致这种消失的主要因素有哪些。”

The researchers found that the more successful a country was economically, the more rapidly its languages were being lost. They said that in North America, languages such as Upper Tanana, were now spoken by fewer than 25 people in Alaska, and were at risk of disappearing forever. In Europe, languages such as Ume Sami in Scandinavia or Auvergnat in France are fading fast.

研究者发现，一个国家在经济上越成功，语言就消失地越快。他们说，在北美洲像 Upper Tanana 这样的语言，目前在美国阿拉斯加州只有不到 25 人使用，已经面临永久消失的危险。在欧洲，一些语言如斯坎迪亚维纳的 Ume Sami 和法国奥维尼亚语正在快速消失。

Dr Amano said: “As economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation’s political and educational fields. People are forced to adopt the ruling language or risk being left out in the cold - economically and politically.”

天野博士说：“随着经济发展，一种语言通常会主宰一国的政治和教育领域。人们被迫接受这种主导语言，或冒着在经济和政治方面被忽视的风险，而使用这种冷门语言。

The team also found that languages in the Himalayas are at risk, such as Bahing in Nepal, which has an estimated eight speakers. “These countries are experiencing rapid economic growth, so in the near future these languages will face risk of extinction,” said Dr Amano.

该团队也发现，喜马拉雅地区的语言也正面临风险，如尼泊尔巴兴语，据估计这种语言只有 8 个使用者。“这些国家经济正在快速增长，所以在不久的将来，这些语言将面临消失的风险，”天野博士说。

Daniel Kaufman of the Endangered Language Alliance, said: “Environmental factors have been overtaken by social, political and economic factors. We are now seeing a pattern of linguistic diversity that was originally shaped by the environment give way to a pattern that is being shaped by policy and economic realities.

濒危语言联盟的丹尼尔·考夫曼说：“社会、政治以及经济因素已超越了环境因素。我们所看到的由环境因素造成的语言多样性已不复存在，取而代之的是政治和经济因素重塑的语言多样性。