Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Science fiction often presents us with planets that speak a single language. However,【小题1】 humans can express themselves in several thousand languages is a delight. Few would welcome the loss of this variety, and, along with it, a multiplicity of nations and cultures.
Unfortunately, the days 【小题2】 English shares the planet with thousands of other languages are numbered. A traveler to the future is likely to notice two things about the language landscape of Earth. One, there will be vastly fewer languages. Two, languages will be 【小题3】 (complicated) than they are today.
By 2115, it’s possible that only about 600 languages will be left on the planet as opposed to today’s 6,000. Too often, colonization has led to the disappearance of languages: Native speakers are punished 【小题4】 using their own languages. Urbanization has only furthered the destruction by bringing people away from their homelands to cities where a single language dominates.
In addition, it is easy for speakers to associate larger languages with opportunities and smaller ones with backwardness. Consequently, people stop passing on smaller languages to their children.
There are diligent efforts 【小题5】 (keep) endangered languages from dying. Sadly, few are likely to lead to communities’ 【小题6】 (raise) children in the languages, which is the only way the languages exist as their full selves.
Instead, many communities create new versions of the languages, with smaller vocabularies and simpler grammar. The Irish Gaelic (盖尔语) proudly spoken by today’s English-Gaelic bilinguals is an example, something that one might call a “New Gaelic.”
Linguists have no single term yet for these new speech varieties, 【小题7】 from Germany’s “Kiezdeutsch” to Singapore’s “Singlish,” the world is witnessing the birth of more optimized versions of old languages. This simplification should not be taken as a sign of decline. All of the “optimized” languages remain full languages in every sense of the term.
We 【小题8】 regret the eclipse of a world where 6,000 different languages 【小题9】 (speak), but fortunately, it seems a decent amount of linguistic diversity will be preserved. Besides, 【小题10】 languages become easier to pick up, the future may promise even more mutual comprehension.