Languages have been coming and going for thousands of years, but in recent times there has been less coming and a lot more going. When the world was still populated by hunter-gatherers, small, tightly knit (联系)groups developed their own patterns of speech independent of each other.Some language experts believe that 10,000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 12,000 languages between them.
语言已经出现和消失数千年了，但近年来，出现的语言越来越少，消失的越来越多。当世界还居住着狩猎采集者时，小型、紧密联系的群体独立发展出了各自的语言模式。一些语言专家认为，大约在1万年前，当世界人口仅有五百万到一千万时，他们之间可能使用了大约1.2万种不同的语言。

Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialisation, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalisation and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.
不久之后，许多人开始定居成为农民，他们的语言也变得更加稳定，数量减少。在过去的几个世纪里，贸易、工业化、民族国家的发展以及普及的义务教育，尤其是过去几十年的全球化和更好的通信，都导致了许多语言的消失，而像英语、西班牙语和汉语这样的主导语言正在日益占据主导地位。

At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages is hugely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2 400; and Asia and the Pacific perhaps 3,200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. The median number (中位数)of speakers is a mere 6,000, which means that half the world’s languages are spoken by fewer people than that.
目前，世界上大约有6800种语言。这些语言的分布极其不均。一般规律是，温和地带的语言相对较少，通常由许多人使用，而炎热、湿润地带的语言种类繁多，通常由少数人使用。欧洲仅有大约200种语言；美洲大约1000种；非洲2400种；亚洲和太平洋地区可能有3200种，其中仅巴布亚新几内亚就有超过800种。语言使用者的中位数仅为6000人，这意味着世界上一半的语言使用者人数少于这个数字。

Already well over 400 of the total of, 6,800 languages are close to extinction(消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busuu in Cameroon (eight remaining speakers),Chiapaneco in Mexico(150), Lipan Apache in the United States(two or three)or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark): none of these seems to have much chance of survival.
在现有的6800种语言中，已经有400多种濒临灭绝，只剩下少数几位年长的使用者。随机挑选，比如喀麦隆的布苏语（仅剩8位使用者）、墨西哥的奇阿帕内科语（150位）、美国的利潘阿帕奇语（两到三位）或澳大利亚的瓦吉古语（一位，还有疑问）：这些语言似乎都没有太大的生存机会。

1. What can we infer about languages in hunter-gatherer times?
   A.They developed very fast. B. They were large in number.
   C. They had similar patterns. D. They were closely connected.
   答案：B

2. Which of the following best explains”dominant “ underlined in paragraph 2？
   A.Complex. B. Advanced.
   C.Powerful. D.Modern.
   答案：C

3. How many languages are spoken by less than 6, 000 people at present?
   A.About 6,800 B.About 3,400
   C.About 2,400 D.About 1,200
   答案：B

4. What is the main idea of the text?
   A. New languages will be created.
   B. People’s lifestyles are reflected in languages.
   C. Human development results in fewer languages.
   D. Geography determines language evolution.
   答案：C