Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between coun

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问题     Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity.
    Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales.
    The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams.
    But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents.
    The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.
Romani is usually used at home because ______.

选项 A、people do not use dialects in public
B、it needs support from the government
C、it never appears in official documents
D、people can only speak it but not read it

答案B

解析 根据题干中的“Romani”,“used at home”定位到第四段第一行的“Romani is used mostly in the home”一句。该题的答案来自本句的前半句,即“without a government to champion it”。该句大意为:如果没有政府倡导,吉普赛语大多数时候只能在家里使用。故本题答案为选项B。
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