What happened to those missing languages on this planet?

[Mariranalily]

"English is very important." "English is the key to the world."
These are what teachers told us, and we all realized that in our country.

But, what about those missing languages? What happened to them?
What will happen after those lanugaes missing? Nothing will happen?
Why those languages is vanishing?

What is the definition of "important" in the language field?
Do you think the problem here is only about the language?

Please reply me as soon as you can, thank you very much!!!

[Teia]

Originally Posted by Mariranalily

"English is very important." "English is the key to the world."
These are what teachers told us, and we all realized that in our country.

But, what about those missing languages? What happened to them?
What will happen after those lanugaes missing? Nothing will happen?
Why those languages is vanishing?

What is the definition of "important" in the language field?
Do you think the problem here is only about the language?

Please reply me as soon as you can, thank you very much!!!

Which are the missing languages you are talking about?
When talking about the importance of a language as English, we refer to its influence, significance and/or effect in all fields of humans` activities, especially, for instance, in Information Technology [IT].

[Tdol]

Languages are dying out at a very fast rate nowadays. I am afraid that most small languages are unlikely to survive.

[mousa]

Originally Posted by mousa

In my view Languge is part of nations' tradtion or more clearly langugues are treated with alot of respect in most countries. If we look back to any languge we will find huge differances due to technology and many other things but that does not mean these languges are dying .
personally , I found it that most pepole proude of their own languge and as far as they doing that there is no worries. people learn other languges and mostly English to get more benfits of the technology and also make them able to comminucate with pepole around the world.

.

[Tdol]

They are dying- most indigenous languages are either dead or at serious risk of death. This link is a list of the dead and dying languages of North East Asia: Endangered languages in Northeast Asia: indexes
You will see that the list is large. Regional languages are at far more risk than national languages, and it is at the regional level that this mass extinction can be seen.

You can get the full UNESCO Red Book of endangered languages here: Red Book on Endangered Languages.

[mousa]

Originally Posted by Tdol

They are dying- most indigenous languages are either dead or at serious risk of death. This link is a list of the dead and dying languages of North East Asia: Endangered languages in Northeast Asia: indexes
You will see that the list is large. Regional languages are at far more risk than national languages, and it is at the regional level that this mass extinction can be seen.

You can get the full UNESCO Red Book of endangered languages here: Red Book on Endangered Languages.

I confess that I did not anything about that . that was shocking .
thanks for links

[blouen]

How about the Aramaic, is it still in use in some countries?

[Tdol]

Originally Posted by mousa

I confess that I did not anything about that . that was shocking .
thanks for links

I remember reading about a language that had died and the only living thing that understood any of it was the man's dog, who survived the owner and still knew the commands. The thought that only a dog remembered any ofa language is a touching and sad tale.

[Tdol]

Originally Posted by blouen

How about the Aramaic, is it still in use in some countries?

It is, but it is endangered: Aramaic language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ddeubel]

I think this is a BIG issue, with one language a day disappearing. It isn't just a case of quantity though, rather quality. A language is a way of seeing / forming reality. We lose another world, another planet blown out of the sky. It doesn't bode well for the future for language is but freedom.....

I made a long blog post here. Watch the great speach by Wade Davis, sterling. My undergrad was in anthropology and I am still a student of the world....

David
EFL CLASSROOM 2.0