1.3+Language



__**Introduction**: Does globalisation cause language diversity to increase or decrease?__  Although a link between changes in the popularity, use, and features languages and globalization itself is difficult to establish for certain (because sometimes these changes might be promoted by national governments), a number of interesting observations can be made.

 __**Describe the changes taking place:**__  The effects of globalization on language vary per location, while there seems to be an increasing diversity of languages, as well as a general “evolution”, there are instances where languages appear less diverse than previously.

 __The changes include__:
 * Of some 6,900 tongues spoken in the world today, about 50% to 90% could be gone by the end of the century.
 * Peru had 150 languages. 50 remain but many are endangered. To work in major companies, use the internet, access media, Perunvians need to speak a major language - i.e. Spanish
 * However, there has also been a growing movement to protect some minority languages. For example, Catalan in Northern Spain is an official language. Bilingual schools in Ireland are on the increase so children can learn English and Gaelic.
 * Also, in the USA, the use of Spanish has grown due to migration. Signs are seen in Spanish in Miami and LA and some Spanish words become part of the language of English speakers too.

 **__Explain the main forces generating this change.__**


 * Parents stop using traditional tongues, thinking it will be better for their children to grow up using a dominant language -> even if parents try to keep the old speech alive, their efforts can be doomed by films and computer games in English.
 * In America and Britain priority goes to making sure that children know English well, despite the fact that they may speak other languages at home.
 * As people migrate for work, mix with a wider variety of people, use the interent, they need to be able to speak a 'major' language.
 * Early industrialising countries and technological advancements have put English speaking countries at this forefront, thereby making this a major languages . For instance, software and computer code is understood in English.
 * As time goes on, an increasing number of speakers of the same language promote others to do the same in order to "fit in", effectively forming a feed-back loop.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The standardisation of schooling also implies that minority languages cannot practically be taught.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The question of whether or not globalisation reduces cultural diversity is debatable. Firstly, there is a degree of homoganisation as more people learn to speak world languages (English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portoguese, French, and increasingly Mandarin). However, as language is connected with culture and identity, strong movements have grown to protect minority languages. In theory, the internet and technology could make it easier to keep thse langauges 'alive'.


 * Evaluate the benefits and problems created by this change**

__Benefits__:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A common tongue could help avoid war -> Rwanda, Bosnia and Vietnam <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A common language leads to common understandings - of one another's culture and also for doing business. Ideas, political and cultural, can be shared.

__Problems:__
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Research has shown that multilingual children do better academically than monolingual ones.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A growing list of tongues are only spoken by the older generations -> language dies out after several decades
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A loss of language can lead to a loss of importnat cultural aspects: literature, music etc.