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Article: Can minority languages be saved? Globalization vs. culture: the increasing mobility of people, goods, and information has driven a powerful trend toward cultural uniformity and the extinction of local languages. But languages that have young people, business, and government on their side are alive and thriving.
- Article from:
- The Futurist
- Article date:
- July 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 World Future Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Globalized economics and media are changing the face of culture around the globe, reducing the number of languages that humans speak. As the world economy becomes more integrated, a common tongue has become more important than ever to promote commerce, and that puts speakers of regional dialects and minority languages at a distinct disadvantage. In addition, telecommunications has pressured languages to become more standardized, further squeezing local variations of language.
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Over the past 500 years, as nation-states developed and became more centralized, regional dialects and minority languages have been dominated by the centrist ...