雅思相关阅读练习题

This reading test contains 10 questions. You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

Read the passage below and answer questions 1-10.

Language Conservation and Revitalisation

It is estimated that around of the approximately six thousand languages that are spoken today, over three thousand of them are likely to have disappeared by the year 2100. Many of these are now classified as endangered languages and are classified as such by factors such as the number of speakers a language has, the age of the speakers, and the percentage of the youngest generation acquiring fluency in the language. For example, a language with many tens of thousands of speakers may be considered endangered if the children in the community are no longer learning the language. This scenario may happen in a place like Indonesia which as many different languages in use, but is trying to make communication easier by teaching a national language nation-wide. In another scenario, a language may only have a few hundred speakers but may not be considered endangered because all of the children in the community are learning the language.

Once a language is classified as endangered, conservation efforts may be made in an attempt to save or revive the language. Whether or not to make such efforts is a decision which is ultimately made by the speakers of the language themselves, but success often requires a great deal of help and approval from the government or other authorities.