现在世界上有超过7000种语言被使用。但是其中大约三分之一的语言的使用者不到1000人。而且据联合国教科文组织称，其中超过40%的语言有消失的危险。事实上世界上的语言每两周就会永远消失一种。
When you say dead language,many people think of Latin.But Latin actually never died.It's been spoken continuously since the time of the Caesars.But it changed very gradually over 2,000 years until it became French,Spanish and other Romance languages.
当你说到消失的语言，许多人会想到拉丁语。但是事实上拉丁语从未消失。它从凯撒大帝时期就被人们使用。但是它在2000年里非常缓慢地变化，直到形成法语，西班牙语和其它罗曼语系。
True language death happens when communities switched to other languages and parents stopped raising their children to speak their old ones.When the last elderly speaker dies,the language is unlikely ever to be spoken fluently again.
当一个地区转换其它语言来使用，父母不再培养他们的孩子说之前的语言，语言才会真正消失。当年纪最大的最后一个语言使用者死去，那门语言不太可能再次被人们流利地使用。
English,like a few other dominant languages,is being widely used.But it is not the case for Kayupulau from Indonesia or Kuruaya from Brazil,both of which are in serious trouble.
巴西官方语言英语像其它几种优势语言一样被广泛使用。但是如印度尼西亚开普劳人的语言或者巴西库大亚人的语言情况不同，它们面临的问题就严重了。
In the bad old days governments just banned languages they didn't like.But sometimes the pressure is more suttle.Any teenager growing up in the Soviet Union soon realized that whatever language you spoke at home,mastering Russian was going to be the key to success.
Citizens of China including Tibetans as well as speakers of Shanghainese or Cantonese faced similar pressure today to focus on Mandarin.
在艰难困苦的昔日，政府只是禁止他们不喜欢的语言。但是有的时候对语言的要求会更微妙一些。在苏联长大的孩子很快意识到，不论你在家里说的是什么语言，掌握俄语是成功的关键。中国公民，包括说西藏语，说上海话或者广东话的人现在面临类似情况，人们把重点放在普通话上。
Once the language is gone,well,it usually goes the way of the dodo.
一旦一种语言消失，好吧，它通常就像渡渡鸟一样灭绝了。
Just one language has ever come back from the dead-Hebrew.It was extinct for two millennia.But Jewish settlers to Palestine in the early 20th centuries spoke different languages back in Europe.And they adopted Hebrew on their arrival as their common language.It became Israel's official language when the country was fully established in 1948 and now has seven million speakers.
只有一种语言消失后又回来了——希伯来语。它消失了两千年，但是20世纪早期从欧洲回来到巴勒斯坦定居的犹太人说不同的语言。他们到达之后选定希伯来语作为他们的通用语言。1948年国家完全建立后，希伯来语成为以列的官方语言，现在有700万使用者。
Now Hebrew is the world's only fully revived language,but others are trying.Cornish spoken in southwestern England died out two centuries ago.But today there are several hundred speakers of the revived language.
现在希伯来语是世界上仅有的一种完全复原的语言，其它语言也在努力。英国西南部使用的康沃尔语在200年前消失。但是现在有几百个说这门要复原的语言的人。
Practicality side human diversity is a good thing in its own right.Imagine going on an exciting holiday,only to find that the food,clothing,buildings,the people and yes,the language was just the same as back home.
实际说来，人类多样性本身就是一件好事。想象在一个令人兴奋的假期中，结果却发现食物，服饰，建筑，人，当然还有语言和回家看到的一样......
Oliver Wendell Holmes put it well.Eevery language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak it isn't shrunked,moving that soul of the people from a temple into a museum,just isn't the same thing.
奥利弗•温德尔•霍姆斯说得很好：“每种语言都是一座庙宇，里面讲这种语言的人不会减少，但是把他们从庙宇之中移到博物馆里，就完全不是一回事了。”
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