On South Goulburn Island, a small and forested island off Australia’s northern coast, a settlement called Warruwi Community consists of about 500 people who speak among themselves around 9 different languages. This is one of the last places in Australia--and probably the world--where so many indigenous(本地的) languages exist together. There's the Maung language, but also one called Bininj Kunwok and another called Yolnu Matha, and Burarra, Ndjebbana, Gunbarlang, Iwaidja, Torres Strait Creole, and English.

None of these languages, except English, are spoken by more than a few thousand people. Several, such as Ndjebbana and Maung, are spoken by groups numbering in the hundreds. For all these individuals to understand one another, one might except South Goulburn to be an island of polyglots, or a place where residents have known well about others' languages, like a sort of “linguistic stone soup”. Rather, they just talk to one another in their own language or languages, which they can do because everyone else understands some or all of the languages but doesn't speak them.

People at Warruwi Community avoid simply switching to a shared language because there are social and personal costs of doing so. Some families insist that their children speak only their language, usually their father's. Languages are associated with particular pieces of land or territory on the island, and races claim ownership of that land, so languages are also considered to be owned by races. One can only speak the languages that one has the right to speak---and breaking this restriction can be seen as a sign of hostility.

This arrangement, which linguists call “receptive multilingualism (接受式多语制)”, shows up all around the world. In some places, it’s accidental. Many English-speaking Anglos who live in the U.S. border states, for instance, can read and understand quite a bit of Spanish from being exposed to it. And countless immigrant children learn to speak the language of their host country while keeping the ability to understand their parents' languages. In other places, receptive multilingualism is a method for temporary situations. But at Warruwi Community, it plays a special role.

Each year, the US Social Security Administration releases a list of the most popular baby names of the year. Nearly every citizen is registered (登记) with the organization, making it easy to create an accurate list.

【小题1】 For example, names such as Dorothy (for girls) and Walter (for boys) were popular in the 1910s. But these days, these names are considered to be old-fashioned. 【小题2】 Other examples of old-fashioned names include Gladys and Ethel (for girls) and Howard and Clarence (for boys).

The list also shows which names are most common during a certain decade. 【小题3】 It happens to be my name.

But some more unusual names have increased in popularity in recent years. From 2016 to 2017, the names “Wells” and “Kairo” (for boys) and “Ensley” and “Oaklynn” (for girls) all became more popular. But these names are still quite rare compared to more ordinary names.

【小题4】 For example, the name “Isabella” saw a huge jump in popularity in 2009. This was because of the success of the Twilight film series, in which one of the main characters is named Isabella. 【小题5】