Passage 4

Questions 16 to 20 are based on thefollowing passage.

Languages are consideredendangered when their last fluent speakers reach old age and when children areno longer learning it as their primary tongue. UNESCO reveals that 18 of theworld's 2,464 officially “endangered” languages have just one livingspeaker. With the exception of just three, these are all based in the so-called“global south”. Economic, political, culturaland social power is held by those who speak the“majoritylanguages” while those that don't are often marginalizedand under pressure to shift towards learning a more“global” language.

Not all people experiencinglanguage shift feel marginalized though. Many Nigerians, for examplc, happilyembrace the use of English as a world language, viewing it as progressive.Others, however, see their native language as a significant marker of ethnicand national identity. Nigerian artist Adé Bantu expressed this in his song,criticizing the Nigerian school system which prohibits children from speakingtheir native languages.

Tribalingual founder, Inky Gibbens,began her social mission to “save, preserve and support” rarecultures and traditions after discovering that the native language of hergrandparents-Buryat, a dialect of Mongolia-was classified as “severely endangered” by UNESCO and findingthat there was no means of learning it online.

Some people suggest thatthere are three categories of response to language endangerment: Do nothing,document languages before they disappear, or promote language revitalization(复兴). Scholars havesince considered a fourth response, which aims to examine the causes oflanguage endangerment and promote sustainable(可持续性的)environments for them.

However, the majority offunding goes into recording rather than revitalizing endangered languages. Acore belief at Tribalingual is that the only means of saving languages andcultures is by teaching them. Documenting alone risks reducing rare languagesto “staticobjects,”as they are denied the chance to thrive inpractice.

“When I foundedTribalingual, I wanted to have a minimum viable product to take to market andtest my assumption that there were people out there actually interested inlearning about unique languages and cultures,” Gibbenssays. “Through my network I found people who werepassionately committed to preserving and teaching their culture and language.Luckily for us, there were also many learners who share our excitement aboutculture and language.”

According to Gibbens,Tribalingual “is fast becoming a global network of culture and languageenthusiasts who are passionate about preserving our world's diversity.” As the “first online learning platform forteaching rare and endangered languages,” it treats alllanguages and cultures equally, regardless of socio-political situation.

 
What is Tribalingual's core belief about saving languages?