What are the pros and cons of endangered languages?
Pros: the disappearance of that language will make the world simpler, with less languages to manage.Cons: all the richness associated with that language will disappear. We don't know yet a lot about what makes a language more efficient than another. For example, when creating an artificial language like Esperanto, the understanding of the different features of several languages may help us create better languages or even manage our language / understand efficiency in the general sense.Also, the fact that a language is dying usually (though not always) goes together with the fact that there is little documentation on it, because if it is a minority language there will be few speakers. So the language may not even have a written form, or not enough has been documented about it, so that its written documents can be understood in the future. So the possibility of having access to that culture and its documents, dies.Each language contains a unique paradigm about communication, a way of expressing things and without at least some solid documentation that paradigm will be lost forever.Also when the number of speakers of a dying language is small enough, the sample we have is already small enough that it may already not represent the whole of the language, because no native speaker knows the whole of a language. With the passing of each speaker a significant sample size of expressions, pronunciation ranges, ways of speaking is lost forever.As for me, the cons far outweigh the pros. I'm not for having thousands of languages, some of them with but a few speakers, or so irregular and full of exceptions that it becomes difficult to maintain them just so ten people can speak them. But at least we should document amply the language vocabulary, grammar, usage, sounds, culture and other accessory information before it dies
Which languages are people united in trying to preserve?
Native Language of the Americas is trying to preserve those languages. Their website: http://www.native-languages.org/ UNESCO has an informative website on the subject, listing many endangered languages and the efforts to preserve them: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-UR... You will find there are efforts on every continent to preserve endangered and disappearing languages. I don't know how you would define "united," but certainly, many people are coming together to try to save not only languages, but the cultures of those peoples as well.
What are some endangered religions?
I know about endangered animals and endangered languages but what about endanged religions? Christianity is a large majority of the world's religions and is fast consuming other religions so I know that there are some endangered (or extinct) religions out there... If you know of any than PLEASE tell me. Websites much appreciated!!!!!!
Is the English Language causing kanguage shift and language death?
Oh, I wouldn't worry about it from this perspective. I guess at the 'showdown' English wouldn't be alone, if at all. Chinese, Spanish, Hindi are all doing a good job. So maybe English will also join the 'endangered species' list one day. If talking about really distant future, there might be some universal computer-based language, or they will finally invent some telepathy gizmo. =) But seriously speaking, you are right that minor languages are disappearing, especially those which don't have a system of writing. And as their last speakers die or switch to other languages, they disappear without a trace. But that's logical, practical, economical, rational, materialistic, pragmatic, etc. It's a result of globalisation, traditional peoples change their way of life, many migrate in search of a better life. Here in Eastern Europe, you are more likely to find a good job if you speak English, surely in the rest of the world as well. But on the other hand, that's evolution, like Darwin said, the strongest survive. It's been happening long before us, only people didn't know and/or didn't bother about it. Latin, this 'zombie' language, is a lucky exception, but there have been not so lucky ones. As to English 'usurpation' of other languages, again you're right, there are many borrowings, e.g. in Russian, but that's connected with all this new stuff coming from the English-speaking world, like computer slang, gadgets, etc. Some may find it irritating, but it's easier to 'borrow' a word than to invent an authentic-looking equivalent. I've heard the French feel strongly about the purity of their language and try to come up with original French words for new things that appear in life. Well, good for them. "Every 14 days a language dies." (according to the below NG article) Every language is a model, a reflection of the world, so every fortnight we're loosing one concept, one understanding of ourselves. For me, as a linguist, it's a shame. For me, as a language user, well, anyway I speak only a few of 7,000, so it doesn't make big difference. Don't distress yourself about English, there's more to this problem than just your language.
Is Swedish a dying language?
No way.There is no set limit for the number of speakers a language needs to survive, but it is generally considered that 100,000 or so is quite enough, and Swedish has about 10 million. In addition, it is the majority language (overwhelmingly so) of a stable country, with a full set of literature, music, media, and schools. It is actually one of the 100 biggest languages in the world, while the list of endangered languages usually lists the 2,500 or so least spoken out of the 5–6,000 languages in the world.A language in Sweden that is definitely on the verge of dying out is the Ume variety of the Sami language; it only has about 25 living speakers and is expected to disappear completely inside a generation.While it is true that we are currently heavily influenced by English, Swedish has always been heavily influenced by other languages. From the 14th to the 16th century it was German (Swedish could at that point be considered a dialect of Plattdeutsch), in the 18th century it was French, then German again (for a while circa 1900, we challenged German for top position in unwieldily long compound words). There is a famous (among linguists) poem by Stiernhielm, writetn in the mid-17th century, where he tried to use a “pure” Swedish language, free from foreign influence, but already then, he failed utterly: outside influence had already made the “ancient” Swedish unknown to him, and would have been incomprehensible to his audience.