Quiz · Language Death and the Fight to Revive

Question 1What is this lecture on language death and revitalization mainly about?

Why governments should fund the translation of dying languages. Why languages die and how some of them have been revitalized. How modern Hebrew has preserved its ancient sounds perfectly. Why exactly seven thousand languages will vanish within this century.

Question 2What proved genuinely decisive in the Maori revitalization model?

Generous government funding for language programmes nationwide. Official decrees requiring Maori in every public school. Translation of ecological knowledge into modern English. The willingness of elders to speak exclusively to infants.

Question 3What does the speaker say about revived languages?

They always return identical to their ancient ancestors. They survive only where governments issue strict decrees. No revived language ever returns completely unchanged. They lose their oral history once they are written down.

Question 4According to the lecture, what is expected to happen to nearly half of today's languages?

They will merge into a few global languages. They will be translated into English. They will fall silent within this century. They will move entirely onto the internet.

Question 5How do languages usually die, according to the speaker?

Their speakers gradually abandon them under economic and social pressure. They are banned outright by foreign governments. They disappear when their last writer dies. They are replaced suddenly by official decrees.

Question 6Why do parents stop transmitting the ancestral tongue to their children?

They are forbidden to speak it at home. They have forgotten how to speak it themselves. Schools punish children who use it. They believe it limits their children's future opportunities.

Question 7What does the speaker say that each individual language encodes?

Only grammatical rules of interest to linguists. Ecological knowledge, oral history, and ways of categorizing the world. Vocabulary lists that translation preserves perfectly. Sacred texts that no outsider may read.

Question 8What was the initial reaction to revitalization programmes in New Zealand and Hawaii?

They were funded generously from the very beginning. They were copied immediately by other countries. They were dismissed as sentimental, yet both succeeded. They were opposed by the elders of both communities.

Question 9Through what kind of institutions did the Maori model mainly succeed?

Community run preschools known as language nests. Government decrees issued nationally. University courses for adult learners. Television programmes broadcast nationwide.

Question 10Which statement is closest in meaning to the speaker's final question about saving a language?

We should ask whether saving a language is still possible. We should consider who is doing the saving and for whose benefit. We should stop trying to save any languages at all. We should ask which languages deserve funding first.