SOCI 1101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2.5: Taxus Brevifolia, Language Death, Wurm
6 Oct 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Linguists predict half of the world"s 6,000 languages will be dead or dying by 2050. Languages becoming extinct 2x the rate of endangered animals (4x birds) Gone before written down gone for good. Language diversity important in its way as biological diversity. Like endangered species: contributes in some way even if usefulness is not immediately recognized. Pacific yew trash tree found that taxol from bark approved to treat ovarian and other cancers. Woodfield: no one knows what riches are hidden inside less-studied languages . By letting languages die out the human race is destroying things that it does not understand. Ex: weather change to hotter, may need survival skills from small group near equator and we would have to reinvent what they know to understand them. Wurm: medical cure dependent on knowledge of tradition language in northern australia. When language is lost there is a loss of inherited knowledge ostler.
