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 Roma-ni-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.
The best title for the text may be______.

选项 A、Romani: Struggling to Survive
B、The History and Future of Romani
C、Romani: A Language Dying Down
D、Disappearance of Minority Languages

答案A

解析 文章第一段通过描述语言的迅速消失讨论到一种反趋势的语言:吉普赛语。第二段对吉普赛语的分布和方言进行介绍。第三段介绍几个讲吉普赛语的重要国家,而且这些国家政府鼓励吉普赛语的使用。第四段指出问题:吉普赛语缺乏书面文字。第五段接着讨论:由于缺乏书面文字,吉普赛语难以用于教学。我们看看四个选项。[A]吉普赛语:在挣扎中生存;[B]吉普赛语的历史和未来;[C]吉普赛语:正在消失的语言;[D]小语种的消失。本文在第一段讲述许多语言消失了,但是吉普赛语并没有,而接下来文章讨论的主题自然不是语言的消失,故选项[C]和[D]不符合文章主旨。文章有讲述吉普赛语的历史和发展,但是没有提到它将来会如何,所以[B]项中的future一词是不符合文章大意的。文章讲述吉普赛语虽然生存下来,由于缺乏书面记录,吉普赛语教学和传递成为一大问题,故吉普赛语的生存是一个比较艰难的过程,因此[A]项符合题目要求。
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