1. ENGLISH LISTENING
DISAPPEARING LANGUAGES
DISAPPEARING LANGUAGES
EYAK
FROM : BBC LEARNING ENGLISH, WORDS IN THE NEWS, TUESDAY 5 MAY 2009
1 When a language dies (A1), UNESCO says the world l……………….. (B1) valuable
2 cultural heritage (A2), a great deal of the l……………….. (B2), poems and the
3 knowledge gathered (A3) by generations is simply l……………….. (B3). In 2008,
4 Alaska's last native speaker (A4) of Eyak died, taking the language with her.
5 Marie Smith Jones praying in Eyak
6 Chief Marie Smith Jones, praying here for the su……………….. (B4) of the Eyaks. She
7 died at the age (A5) of eighty-nine, ca……………….. (B5) to save her people's
8 heritage.
9 UNESCO says government (A6) action is needed if the world is to preserve its
10 l……………….. (B6) diversity. People must be proud (A7) to speak their language to
11 ens……………….. (B7) it survives.
12 In the last (A8) five years, the governments of Mexico, New Zealand and the United
13 States managed to rev……………….. (B8) the trend locally. But UNESCO says (A9)
14 the phenomenon of d……………….. (B9) languages appears in every region (A10)
15 and in very div……………….. (B10) economic conditions.
Leonardo Rocha, BBC