Name: Nguyn Trn Thin T

ID: 1257010299

Class: DH12AV03

Every year several languages die out. Some people think that this is not important because life will be easier if there are fewer languages in the world. Do you agree or disagree with this opinion? (700-800 words).

Life Cannot Get Any Easier If Languages Die Out The world is a mosaic of vision. With each language that disappears, a piece of that mosaic is lost, stated Aryon DallIgna Rodrigues. Clearly, some people do not care about the lost piece of that mosaic, so that languages is lost tends to be taken for granted. Those believe that the fewer languages, the simpler life is granted that the language barrier might happen less. However, literally, the loss of every language is very dangerous because it induces the decrease of peoples consciousness of their history and badly influences the human knowledge. Firstly, it is obvious that the disappearance of languages probably causes people to forget about their origin. It is clear to see that languages represent culture and history which are the links to the past, so when languages die out, peoples roots are forgotten (Wallace, 2009, para. 12). For example, those possibly do not know where they are from, what festivals of their culture are or who their forebears are. Moreover, Wallace (2009) pointed out that the disappearance of a language usually makes the sense of identity and belonging Word count 727 Page 1

of each individual eroded (para. 12). People in that case just lose their heritage no matter what languages and cultures they subsume to replace their own. In brief, a disappearing language is presumably believed to extinguish gradually history of people in that culture. Secondly, there is little question that the knowledge of mankind is lost as a result of language extinction. As we know, languages disclose most different kinds of knowledge and important information to us; therefore, when languages die out, the possibility of losing priceless sources is almost 100%. Crystal (2000) asserted that as each language dies, another precious source of data for philosophers, scientists, anthropologists, folklorists, historians,

psychologists, linguists, writers is lost (p. 53). Additionally, the chance of meeting new things in a language which dies out is unlikely to occur. With a number of fascinating things about life: knowledge, music, people, etc. which languages bring out, humans seem to acquire a new soul. Thus, not interacting with one other language and discovering it perhaps means that we let ourselves miss out on experiencing other languages as well as other cultures (Crystal, 2000, p. 44). To sum up, enlightenment of human beings is highly likely to dissolve when languages vanish. There is an objection that with fewer languages, life seems to be easier because everyone communicates with each other more simply, and the language barrier might happen less. For instance, if all people in Asia merely used English, there might be many advantages in diplomatic relations between the countries. However, it can be clearly seen that linguistic diversity is very important, and it seems that much richness inside a less-studied language is Word count 727 Page 2

still not be revealed (Woodfield, as cited in Ostler, 2000, para. 5). It is undoubted that diversity is still the best as more languages means that there are more various ways to describe the world. Moreover, Ostler claimed that just as we depend on biological complexity for our physical survival, we depend on linguistic complexity for our cultural survival (para. 9). This is because linguistic complexity provides us various ways to communicate, to express our thoughts and to show our traditions, our history. Consequently, the loss of linguistic diversity may be greater than the loss of biological diversity (Crystal, 2000, p. 34). People should recognize that the diversity of language is extremely important as there is no point in living a world without that diversity. In conclusion, the extinction of a language does actually not get life better and easier. The loss of languages leads to the loss of the link to the past, with a result that people may lose their sense of identity and belonging, and the heritage in their culture can be wiped out day by day. It also brings many sources of data to the edge of disappearance, which gets human knowledge die out. In addition, the diversity in linguistic world is not only so important that the richness hidden inside a language can become unknown for good and all when it is lost, but it also has an intense influence on our culture just as the impact of biological diversity on our physical life. People have to do something to keep languages permanently alive in order to keep both human heritage and the linguistic diversity alive, either.

Word count 727

Page 3

References Crystal, D. (2000, June). Language death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostler, R. (2000). Disappearing languages. [Electronic version]. Whole Earth, 2100(138), 6-8. Wallace, L. (2009, November 10). Whats lost when a language dies. The Atlantic. Retrieved September 20, 2013, from

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2009/11/whats-lost-when-alanguage-dies/29886/

Word count 727

Page 4