Endangered Languages Quiz | World

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Which of the following is NOT necessarily a characteristic of an endangered language?

Answer: It is spoken by people who live in isolated areas.

Groups of people living in isolated areas such as Papua New Guinea or the Amazon rainforest can have thriving languages IF the language is being widely spoken, taught to children, and not replaced by another, preferred language.

A sad consequence of colonization everywhere in the world has been extensive loss of indigenous languages.

2. 96% of the world's 6800 languages are spoken by only 4% of its people.

Answer: True

Conversely, 96% of the earth's population speak only 4% of its languages...about 270 of them. The very real risk is that the other 6500+ languages will disappear within the next century or so. UNESCO estimates that one of the world's languages disappears every two weeks.

3. Which of the following is a major cause of language loss?

Answer: All of these

Languages are lost when people stop speaking them and teaching them to their children, but the reasons they do so are varied. Many conquerors have forbidden the use or teaching of a people's own language (this is called "linguicide"). Speakers of traditional languages may be forced, for economic reasons, to learn another tongue. And since 90% of the world's known languages are not represented on the Internet, information seekers and students have to resort to one which is.

4. One-fourth to one-third of the world's languages lack orthography. What is that?

Answer: A written language

The lack of a written language means that when the last speaker of a language dies, all of its stories, history, and knowledge die as well. Linguists all over the world are working with the speakers of endangered languages to transcribe these cultural treasures for future generations. For example, it is estimated that 80% of African languages have no orthography.

5. Which of the following statements about the world's languages is FALSE?

Answer: Europe has no endangered languages.

Endangered languages are found on all of the earth's permanently populated continents. European languages in severe danger include several dialects of Saami (Scandinavia), Karaim (Lithuania), Liv (Latvia) and Lower Silesian (Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic).

The eight countries with half the world's languages are: Papua New Guinea (820 languages), Indonesia (737), Nigeria (510), India (415), Mexico (291), Cameroon (279), Brazil (188) and Australia (120). (Information from UNESCO)

Can you imagine being the last speaker of your language?

6. According to ethnologue.com's list of nearly extinct languages, these four countries have the greatest number of moribund languages in the Americas. Which country has the most, by twice as many?

Answer: The United States of America

Surprised? I was too, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. All four of these countries have had their native languages replaced with those of their conquerors, but ethnologue.com lists 67 Native American tongues in danger. Brazil is second with 30, Canada has 17, and Peru has 11.

7. Creoles and pidgin languages are generally not included when linguists discuss endangered languages.

Answer: False

A pidgin language (such as Pidgin English) arises when words from two or more languages are combined into a new dialect. Some pidgins have become so entrenched that they are recognized as languages, have native speakers, and are then called "Creoles". Haitian Creole is an example. One of Papua New Guinea's official languages, Tok Pisin Creole (also called "Neo Melanesian"), is a pidgin that became a Creole. Many pidgin and Creole languages are endangered.

Another interesting fact is that some SIGN languages, such as the Maritime Sign Language of Canada's eastern provinces, are also endangered.

8. An example of a language on its way to extinction is Ainu, which once had 19 dialects and now has only about 15 speakers. The Ainu people have been almost completely integrated into the culture and language of which country?

Answer: Japan

Ainu is an "Isolate Language", which means it does not belong to any other family of languages. It is unique. It is also almost gone. The Ainu people speak Japanese now.

9. Which of the following languages has NOT shown a large increase in the number of people speaking it in the past hundred years?

Answer: Manx

Nearly everyone in Israel speaks Hebrew as a first or second language. Hawaiian, a language nearly lost after colonization, is taught in immersion schools and at the University of Hawaii. (The immersion schools are based on New Zealand's similar successful programs in the Maori language.) Gaelic is now spoken widely in Ireland.

Manx, the language of the Isle of Man, was pronounced dead in 1974 when its last native speaker died at the age of 97. However, as with other Celtic languages such as Cornish, Irish and Scots Gaelic and Welsh, efforts are underway to preserve the language of a rich culture. For a wonderful discussion of Manx, please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_language

(Info from www.sil.org and www.ogmios.org.)

10. There is hope for endangered languages. All over the world, scholars and ordinary people are working to preserve both languages and the cultures they represent. Which of the following organizations is creating an online database (with word lists) of all the world's known languages?

Answer: The Rosetta Project

The ambitious Rosetta Project (named for the famous stone that unlocked ancient language secrets) has as its aim nothing less than a complete compilation of all known human languages by 2100. Its website, at www.rosettaproject.org, is fascinating. UNESCO and SIL are also actively working to save endangered languages.

I hope you have enjoyed this quiz.

Source: Author LilahDeDah

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Leau before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Endangered Languages Trivia Quiz

Like plant and animal species, when a language becomes extinct, it's gone forever. Over half of the world's 6800 languages are endangered. Here are ten questions about language loss and language rescue.

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