The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Languages become endangered and die out for many reasons. Sadly, the physical annihilation of communities of native speakers of a language is all too often the cause of language extinction. In North America, European colonists brought death and destruction to many Native American communities. This was followed by US federal policies restricting the use of indigenous languages, including the removal of native children from their communities to federal boarding schools where native languages and cultural practices were prohibited. As many as 75 percent of the languages spoken in the territories that became the United States have gone extinct, with slightly better language survival rates in Central and South America ...
Even without physical annihilation and prohibitions against language use, the language of the "dominant" cultures may drive other languages into extinction; young people see education, jobs, culture and technology associated with the dominant language and focus their attention on that language. The largest language "killers" are English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Hindi, and Chinese, all of which have privileged status as dominant languages threatening minority languages.
When we lose a language, we lose the worldview, culture and knowledge of the people who spoke it, constituting a loss to all humanity. People around the world live in direct contact with their native environment, their habitat. When the language they speak goes extinct, the rest of humanity loses their knowledge of that environment, their wisdom about the relationship between local plants and illness, their philosophical and religious beliefs, as well as their native cultural expression (in music, visual art and poetry) that has enriched both the speakers of that language and others who would have encountered that culture ...
As educators deeply immersed in the liberal arts, we believe that educating students broadly in all facets of language and culture ... yields immense rewards. Some individuals educated in the liberal arts tradition will pursue advanced study in linguistics and become actively engaged in language preservation, setting out for the Amazon, for example, with video recording equipment to interview the last surviving elders in a community to record and document a language spoken by no children.
Certainly, though, the vast majority of students will not pursue this kind of activity. For these students, a liberal arts education is absolutely critical from the twin perspectives of language extinction and global citizenship. When students study languages other than their own, they are sensitized to the existence of different cultural perspectives and practices. With such an education, students are more likely to be able to articulate insights into their own cultural biases, be more empathetic to individuals of other cultures, communicate successfully across linguistic and cultural differences, consider and resolve questions in a way that reflects multiple cultural perspectives, and, ultimately extend support to people, programs, practices, and policies that support the preservation of endangered languages.
There is ample evidence that such preservation can work in languages spiraling toward extinction. For example, Navajo, Cree, and Inuit communities have established schools in which these languages are the language of instruction, and the number of speakers of each has increased.
It can be inferred from the passage that it is likely South America had a slightly better language survival rate than North America for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
The passage highlights the widespread extinction of indigenous languages in North America due to colonisation, physical annihilation, and assimilation policies while noting slightly better survival rates in Central and South America. It implies that language survival may be influenced by factors such as social policies, cultural integration, and the extent of physical and cultural displacement.
Evaluating the choices, we note that Option A is plausible since allowing children to stay with families would help preserve native languages, unlike the North American policy of removing children to boarding schools, as discussed in the passage. Option B is also reasonable, as less effective assimilation efforts by colonial governments could lead to better language retention. Option C also aligns with the passage’s context, as it discusses physical annihilation as a significant driver of language extinction, but the survival rate being slightly better in South America could suggest marginally less physical annihilation.
However, Option D is problematic; while providing locals with jobs in the colonial administration might seem like a factor that supports language retention, this scenario is not consistent with the passage. The passage emphasises that dominant languages often replace indigenous ones through socio-economic pressures, and employment in colonial administration would likely reinforce the use of the dominant language rather than preserve native languages.
Hence, Option D is the best choice.
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