专题十 细节理解
Passage 1(2014课标全国Ⅰ,D)体裁:说明文 词数:267
As more and more people speak the global languages of English,Chinese,Spanish,and Arabic,other languages are rapidly disappearing.In fact,half of the 6,000—7,000 languages spoken around the world today will likely die out by the next century,according to the United Nations Educational,Scientific,and Cultural Organization(UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss,scholars from a number of organizations—UNESCO and National Geographic among them—have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin,a scientist at the Macmillan Center,Yale University,who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas,is following in that tradition.His recently published book,A Grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture,grows out of his experience living,working,and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin,who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India,Nepal,Bhutan,and China.But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials—including
