Saving Language Reading Answers
Saving Language Reading Answers is the second task of the IELTS reading section. It is an important section that consists of a comprehensive passage followed by related questions. Candidates must thoroughly read the IELTS reading passage, and answer over 40 questions that target the candidates' comprehension skills. This academic IELTS Reading sample Saving Language contains two types of questions.
- YES/NO/NOT GIVEN Questions
- Matching Information Questions
For more such samples candidates can access the IELTS Reading practice papers on the website.
Check: Get 10 Free IELTS Sample Papers
Check: Register for IELTS Coaching - Join for Free Trial Class Now
Section 1
Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions
Saving Language Reading Answers
For the first time, linguists have put a price on language. To save a language from extinction isn't cheap - but more and more people are arguing that the alternative is the death of communities.
- There is nothing unusual about a single language dying. Communities have come and gone throughout history and with them their language. But what is happening today is extraordinary, judged by the standards of the past. It is language extinction on a massive scale. According to the best estimates, there are some 6,000 languages in the world. Of these, about half are going to die out in the course of the next century: that's 3,000 languages in 1,200 months. On average, there is a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so.
- How do we know? In the course of the past two or three decades, linguists all over the world have been gathering comparative data. If they find a language with just a few speakers left, and nobody is bothering to pass the language on to the children, they conclude that language is bound to die out soon. And we have to draw the same conclusion if a language has less than 100 speakers. It is not likely to last very long. A 1999 survey shows that 97 per cent of the world's languages are spoken by just four per cent of the people.
- It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language. But many languages are not in such a serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered, there are things that can be done to give new life to them. It is called revitalisation.
- Once a community realises that its language is in danger, it can start to introduce measures that can genuinely revitalise. The community itself must want to save its language. The culture of which it is a part must need to have respect for minority languages. There needs to be funding, to support courses, materials, and teachers. And there need to be linguists, to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper. That's the bottom line: getting the language documented - recorded, analysed, written down. People must be able to read and write if they and their language are to have a future in an increasing computer-literate civilization.
- But can we save a few thousand languages, just like that? Yes, if the will and funding were available. It is not cheap, getting linguists into the field, training local analysts, supporting the community with language resources and teachers, compiling grammars and dictionaries, writing materials for use in schools. It takes time, lots of it, to revitalise an endangered language. Conditions vary so much that it is difficult to generalise, but a figure of $100,000 a year per language cannot be far from the truth. If we devoted that amount of effort over three years for each of 3,000 languages, we would be talking about some $900 million.
- There are some famous cases that illustrate what can be done. Welsh, alone among the Celtic languages, is not only stopping its steady decline towards extinction but showing signs of real growth. Two Language Acts protect the status of Welsh now, and its presence is increasingly in evidence wherever you travel in Wales.
- On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called 'language nests', first introduced in 1982. These are organisations that provide children under five with a domestic setting in which they are intensively exposed to the language. The staff are all Maori speakers from the local community. The hope is that the children will keep their Maori skills alive after leaving the nests and as they grow older they will, in turn, become role models to a new generation of young children. There are cases like this all over the world. And when the reviving language is associated with a degree of political autonomy, the growth can be especially striking, as shown by Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, after the Islanders received a measure of autonomy from Denmark.
- In Switzerland, Romansch was facing a difficult situation, spoken in five very different dialects, with small and diminishing numbers, as young people left their community for work in the German-speaking cities. The solution here was the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects. Romansch Grischun, as it is now called, has official status in parts of Switzerland, and is being increasingly used in the spoken form on radio and television.
- A language can be brought back from the very brink of extinction. The Ainu language of Japan, after many years of neglect and repression, had reached a stage where there were only eight fluent speakers left, all elderly. However, new government policies brought fresh attitudes and a positive interest in survival. Several 'semi-speakers' - people who had become unwilling to speak Ainu because of the negative attitudes of Japanese speakers were prompted to become active speakers again. There is fresh interest now and the language is more publicly available than it has been for years.
- If good descriptions and materials are available, even extinct languages can be resurrected. Kaurna, from South Australia, is an example. This language had been extinct for about a century but had been quite well documented. So, when a strong movement grew for its revival, it was possible to reconstruct it. The revised language is not the same as the original, of course. It lacks the range that the original had and much of the old vocabulary. But it can nonetheless act as a badge of present-day identity for its people. And as long as people continue to value it as a true marker of their identity, and are prepared to keep using it, it will develop new functions and new vocabulary, as any other living language would do.
- It is too soon to predict the future of these revived languages, but in some parts of the world, they are attracting precisely the range of positive attitudes and grassroots support which are the preconditions for language survival. In such unexpected but heartwarming ways might we see the grand total of languages in the world minimally increased.
Section 2
Solution and Explanation
Questions 28-32:
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet write
YES- if the statement agrees with the writer’s views
NO- if the statement contradicts the writer’s views
NOT GIVEN- if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
- The rate at which languages are becoming extinct has increased.
Answer: YES
Supporting Sentence: It is language extinction on a massive scale.
Keywords: Language, extinct, increased
Keyword Location: Paragraph A, Lines 3
Explanation: The passage mentions data to confirm that language extinction is occurring on a large scale. Hence, the correct answer is ‘yes’.
Read More IELTS Reading Related Samples
- Research on the subject of language extinction began in the 1990s.
Answer: NO
Supporting Sentence: In the course of the past two or three decades, linguists all over the world have been gathering comparative data.
Keywords: Research, language, extinction, began, 1990s
Keyword Location: Paragraph B, Lines 1-2
Explanation: The passage mentions that research over language extinction has been carried out for the past two to three decades. Therefore, the correct answer is ‘no’.
- In order to survive, a language needs to be spoken by more than 100 people.
Answer: YES
Supporting Sentence: And we have to draw the same conclusion if a language has less than 100 speakers. It is not likely to last very long.
Keywords: Survive, language, spoken, more than, 100 people
Keyword Location: Paragraph B, Lines 4-5
Explanation: The passage states that for any language to survive, it must be spoken by at least 100 people. Hence the correct answer is ‘yes’.
- Certain parts of the world are more vulnerable than others to language extinction.
Answer: NOT GIVEN
- Saving language should be the major concern of any small community whose language is under threat.
Answer: NO
Supporting Sentence: It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language.
Keywords: Saving, language, major, concern, small, community, threat
Keyword Location: Paragraph C, Lines 1-2
Explanation: The passage mentions that nothing can be done to survive a language where small communities do not care about their language which is threatened and has very few speakers left. Hence, the correct answer is ‘no’.
Questions 33-35:
The list below gives some of the factors that are necessary to assist the revitalisation of a language within a community.
Which THREE of the factors are mentioned by the writer of the text?
Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 33-35 on your answer sheet.
- the existence of related languages
- support from the indigenous population
- books tracing the historical development of the language
- on-the-spot help from language experts
- a range of speakers of different ages
- formal education procedures
- a common purpose for which the language is required
Question 33:
Answer: B. support from the indigenous population
Supporting Sentence: The community itself must want to save its language.
Keywords: support, indigenous, population, revitalisation, language
Keyword Location: Paragraph D, Line 2
Explanation: The writer mentions that if any community has to revive its language, the people of that particular community where that language is spoken will have to make efforts.
Question 34:
Answer: D. on-the-spot help from language experts
Supporting Sentence: And there need to be linguists, to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper.
Keywords: On-the-spot, help, language, experts, revitalisation, language
Keyword Location: Paragraph D, Lines 4-5
Explanation: The language experts must offer help to the indigenous communities in saving their language by recording, analysing and writing down the language.
Question 35:
Answer: F. formal education procedures
Supporting Sentence: It is not cheap, getting linguists into the field, training local analysts, supporting the community with language resources and teachers, compiling grammars and dictionaries, writing materials for use in schools.
Keywords: Formal, education, procedure, revitalisation, language
Keyword Location: Paragraph E, Lines 2-4
Explanation: The passage mentions that revitalising any language is not an easy process but it can be done if the formal education procedures are targeted like writing the school study materials in the targeted language.
Questions 36-40:
Match the languages A-F with the statements below (Questions 36-40) which describe how a language was saved.
Write your answers in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.
Languages
- Welsh
- Maori
- Faroese
- Romansch
- Ainu
- Kaurna
- The region in which the language was spoken gained independence.
Answer: C. Faroese
Supporting Sentence: And when the reviving language is associated with a degree of political autonomy, the growth can be especially striking, as shown by Faroese, spoken in the Faroe Islands, after the Islanders received a measure of autonomy from Denmark.
Keywords: Region, language, spoken, gained, independence, Faroese
Keyword Location: Paragraph G, Lines 6-8
Explanation: It is mentioned in the passage that the regions which gained freedom had higher hope of keeping their native language alive and flourishing as has been observed in the case of Faroese.
- People were encouraged to view the language with less prejudice.
Answer: E. Ainu
Supporting Sentence: Several 'semi-speakers' - people who had become unwilling to speak Ainu because of the negative attitudes of Japanese speakers were prompted to become active speakers again.
Keywords: People, encouraged, view, language, less, prejudice, Ainu
Keyword Location: Paragraph I, Lines 4-6
Explanation: It is mentioned in the passage that the people who were reluctant to speak Ainu were motivated by the government to speak the language which helped the language to gain prominence.
- Language immersion programmes were set up for sectors of the population.
Answer: B. Maori
Supporting Sentence: On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called 'language nests', first introduced in 1982.
Keywords: Language, immersion, programmes, set up, sectors, population, Maori
Keyword Location: Paragraph G, Lines 1-2
Explanation: The passage mentions that language nests are established as a part of language immersion programmes in New Zealand to keep the Maori language alive, hoping the children will continue to speak and pass the language to the next generation.
- A merger of different varieties of the language took place.
Answer: D. Romansch
Supporting Sentence: The solution here was the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects.
Keywords: Merger, different, varieties, language, Romansch
Keyword Location: Paragraph H, Lines 3-4
Explanation: It is mentioned that Romansch was spoken in five different dialects in Switzerland. To combat this problem, there was a single written language unifying all five dialects.
- Written samples of the language permitted its revitalisation.
Answer: F. Kaurna
Supporting Sentence: Kaurna, from South Australia, is an example. This language had been extinct for about a century but had been quite well documented.
Keywords: Written samples, language, permitted, revitalisation, Kaurna
Keyword Location: Paragraph J, Lines 1-4
Explanation: The passage mentions that if any language is well documented, it is possible to revive the language as it had been in the case of the Kaurna language.
Comments