"По новостям": Disappearing languages

4 июня 2009

Время чтения: 1 мин

В разделе <link type="page"><caption> Learning English</caption><url href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/learning_english/" platform="highweb"/></link> мы публикуем учебные материалы, интерактивные проекты, истории о культуре и традициях англоязычных стран.

В рубрике "По новостям" представлены радиорепортажи корреспондентов Би-би-си о заметных мировых событиях.

The United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, says more than a third of the world's six thousand languages are in danger of extinction. Of those two thousand, it says, about two hundred are spoken by only a handful of people.

When a language dies, UNESCO says the world loses valuable cultural heritage - a great deal of the legends, poems and the knowledge gathered by generations is simply lost.

Австралийский абориген — Подпись к фото, Трети языков мира грозит исчезновение

In 2008, Alaska's last native speaker of Eyak died, taking the language with her. Marie Smith Jones praying in Eyak Chief Marie Smith Jones, praying here for the survival of the Eyaks. She died at the age of eighty-nine, campaigning to save her people's heritage. UNESCO says government action is needed if the world is to preserve its linguistic diversity.

People must be proud to speak their language to ensure it survives. In the last five years, the governments of Mexico, New Zealand and the United States managed to reverse the trend locally. But UNESCO says the phenomenon of dying languages appears in every region and in very diverse economic conditions.

Notes:

extinction - исчезновения
UNESCO - сокр. от the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation - Организация Объединенных Наций по вопросам образования, науки и культуры
valuable - ценное
cultural heritage - культурное наследие
a great deal of - множество
native speaker - носитель языка
to preserve its linguistic diversity - сохранить свое языковое разнообразие
to reverse the trend - зд. изменить ситуацию к лучшему