How Climate Change1 Is Killing the World's Languages？气候变化如何令世界上的语言消亡？

There are about7，000 spoken languagesin the world， and every 40days one language dies2.About 1，500 languagescould be lost in the next100 years， scientists find.And the world climate is becoming warmer andwarmer. How climate change is killing theworld’s languages？

Scientists see that many small islands3countries—there’s only 100 people speak theirlanguage—are facing climate change. When theweather becomes warmer， the sea will rise4.Vanuatu is an island country. It’s very small—only 12，189 square kilometers5—but it has110 languages spoken there， one for each 111square kilometers. It is in the great danger ofsea rise. If the sea rises， people there will haveto move away from their home.

世界上约有7000 种口语语言，每四十天就有一种消亡。科学家们发现，在接下来的一百年里，约有1500 种语言可能会消失。而且全球的气候正在变暖。那么，气候变化是如何导致语言消亡的呢？

科学家们看到，很多小的岛国正面临着气候变化，这些岛国小到只有100 个人使用他们的语言。当气候变暖的时候，海平面会上升。瓦努阿图就是一个这样的岛国，它很小，国土面积只有12189 平方千米，但是岛上却有110 种语言，平均每111 平方千米就有一种语言。而这个岛国面临海平面上升的危险极大。如果海平面上升，那里的人们就不得不离开自己的家园。

If people in Vanuatu move away fromthe island and live in Indonesia6 orAustralia， what will happen7 to theirlanguages？ It often happens that theirlanguages will die because their children willspeak a new language—the language ofIndonesia or Australia.

A language is much more than words.When a languagedies， its culture8will be lost at thesame time.

There is goodnews. Only 2，000people spoke Hawaiian9 in the 1970s. Manylanguage schools were built then. Childrenare taught the language from birth， usually bykind of grandparents and now more than18，700 people speak it. And the same thinghappened to Maori10 in the 1970s. Only 5%of young Maori people spoke the languagethen， but now 25% now speak it.

如果瓦努阿图人搬离岛屿，移居到印度尼西亚或者澳大利亚，那么他们的语言会发生什么改变呢？通常情况下，他们的语言会消亡，因为他们的孩子会使用新的语言，即印度尼西亚或者澳大利亚的语言。

语言不仅仅是话语，当一种语言消亡的同时，它背后的文化也会丢失。

也有好消息。上世纪70 年代，使用夏威夷语的人数大概只有两千，后来成立了很多语言学校，孩子们从出生开始就去学习当地语言，通常是爷爷辈的人进行授课，而今有18700 人说这门语言。毛利语也一样，在上世纪70 年代只有百分之五的年轻毛利人讲毛利语，现在有百分之二十五。

（英语原文选自：toda.org）