Saving dead languages

6 Minute English

语言学习

2023-10-05

6 分钟

单集文稿 ...

  • Neil: I'm Neil.

  • Phil: And I'm Phil.

  • And now that we've done our hellos,

  • let's hear some greetings in different languages from around the world.

  • But what do these languages have in common?

  • Neil: I'm afraid I don't know what they have in common

  • because I don't recognise any of them.

  • Phil: Well, sadly the one thing uniting these languages is that they're all endangered.

  • We often hear about animals at risk of extinction,

  • but a recent study by the Australian National University found

  • that out of the world's 7000 existing languages, half are under threat.

  • But what can be done to save languages from dying out?

  • That's what we'll be discussing in this programme,

  • and, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

  • Neil: But first I have a question for you, Phil,

  • and it's about a country which used to be one of the most linguistically rich places on Earth, Australia.

  • Before European settlers arrived in the 1800s,

  • Australia had over 200 languages spoken by the native Aboriginal people

  • who had lived there for thousands of years.

  • Many Aboriginal languages were destroyed