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Conversation Two
对话二
Listen to the conversation, and mark each question as A, B, C or D according to your listening.
听对话，根据对话内容选出最佳答案，并将答案的标号A，B，C，D写在答题纸上的相应位置。
Predictions are dire that, by the end of this century, more than half of the world’s 6,000 languages will be gone.
可怕的预测是，到本世纪末，世界上6000种语言中的一半以上将会消失。
With today’s program we’re trying to explore tongues around the globe at risk of being lost forever and what is lost with them.
在今天的节目中，我们将试图探索世界各地可能会永远消失的语言以及跟随它们消失的东西。
Each of these languages holds a little piece of information or a lot of information.
这些语言中的每一种语言都包含一小段或大量信息。
And that’s information that, if you lose the language, you lose that connection with that place, with that way of thinking, with tens of thousands of years of that language’s lineage.
也就是说，如果你失去了语言，你就失去了与那个地方、那种思维方式和那种语言数万年的谱系的联系。
So what leads to the loss of some languages?
那么，是什么导致了某些语言的消失呢？
One cause of the loss of languages, of course, lives around the globe increasingly interconnected through technology, the economy, and the dominance of a few languages, including online.
当然，语言消失的一个原因是，随着技术、经济的发展和少数语言（包括网络语言）逐渐占据主导地位，世界各地的人们相互联系的频率日益频繁。
Then what are the few dominant languages?
少数占据主导地位的语言是什么？
Well, it seems English, Mandarin and Spanish are gobbling up languages, as people decide they need to have this in order to assimilate into a culture.
英语、普通话和西班牙语似乎正在吞噬其他语言，因为人们认为，为了融入一种文化，他们需要掌握这些语言。
What’s the key to a language surviving?
一门语言存留下来的关键是什么？
A language survives if you have the choice to learn it, if it’s available for you to live your life in some way with your language as part of you.
如果你选择学习一门语言，如果它能让你以某种方式生活，那么这门语言就会存留下来。
In Wales, you have a choice of whether to go to an English medium school or to a Welsh medium school.
在威尔士，你可以选择是去上用英语教学的中学还是去上用威尔士语教学的中学。
And in this way, children can learn in the language that they are speaking at home.
通过这种方式，孩子们可以用他们在家里说的语言学习。
But couldn’t you make the argument that it would be better if we all spoke the same language, that we all understood each other?
但你难道不认为如果我们都说同一种语言会更好吗，这样我们就能互相理解？
Well, language is the way we think.
语言是我们思考的方式。
And it’s the way it’s been handed down through generations.
它是代代相传的方式。
If you begin to think in another language, that’s fine.
如果你开始用另一种语言思考，那很好。
But if you have to lose the way that your family has been speaking, that’s not so fine.
但如果你不得不失去你的家人说话的方式，那就不是那么好了。
That’s losing who you are.
那就是失去自我。
And when we lose who we are, that’s when we become this homogenized consumer of life, rather than a citizen who comes from a place and knows who you are.
当我们失去自我的时候，我们就变成了生活的同质化消费者，而不是一个来自某个地方、知道自己是谁的公民。
