Englischverständnis für fortgeschrittene Anfänger – Buch 1

question is, should they?
    Click here to watch this BBC report on human cloning.
     
    Glossary
    organ – an internal body part, e.g. the heart, lungs etc. Organ
    fast food restaurants – McDonalds, Burger King etc. Fast-Food-Restaurants
    inevitable – something that will happen, no matter what. unvermeidbar
    a cutting – a small part of a plant that is used to grow a new plant. Steckling
    great controversy – something which causes disagreement and discussion. große Kontroverse
    suggests – ‘to suggest’, to cause you to think that (something) exists or is the case. empfehlen, suggerieren
    petri dish – A shallow, circular, transparent dish with a flat lid, used in experiments. Petrischale
    surrogate – a substitute. Ersatz, Stellvertreter
    gives birth to – ‘to give birth to’, to physically have a baby. gebären
    implanted – ‘to implant’, to put something inside something else. implantieren, einpflanzen
    procedure – a way of doing something. Verfahren, Prozedur
    advances – improvements in something, e.g. science, medicine. Fortschritte
     
    Questions about the text
    1. How did scientists clone Dolly the sheep? Using artificial twinning or somatic cell nuclear transfer?
    2. Which of the two cloning methods is the most technologically advanced?
    3. Apart from a sheep, which other two animals are mentioned in the text?
    4. Why are clones which are created using artificial twinning ‘genetically identical’?
    5. Which three groups find human cloning controversial?
    6. Which two types of cell are not examples of somatic cells?
    7. Was Dolly the sheep the first animal clone experiment?
    8. Give an example of when a gardener would use cloning?
    9. According to the text, if scientists clone humans, which method would they use?
    10. True or false? – Dolly was grown in a tank.
    Click here to check your answers.

Language Death
     

    © Daemys | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images
     
    It is estimated that there are between 6000 and 7000 languages spoken around the world today. However, many of these languages are dying. Some linguists believe that in one hundred years, over 80% the world’s languages will cease to be spoken. Why is this happening? What can be done to stop it? Should anything be done to stop it?
    How and why do languages die? There are several ways. Languages which have geographically isolated population of speakers can die when their speakers are wiped out by genocide, disease, or natural disaster.  For example, The Daily Gazette reported that in 2001 a huge earthquake in India killed about 30,000 speakers of Kutchi. This left only 770,000 speakers of the language.
    However, most of the time language death is not as dramatic as this. Most cases of language death happen when the speakers of a language becomes bilingual. Gradually , they begin to use the second language more often, until they stop using their original language. This process can be a choice or it can be forced on a population (for example by the government). One example of forced language death happened in Hawaii. When the island became part of the US in 1898, the American government banned schools from teaching the Hawaiian language, almost causing it to become extinct. 
    A language can be declared dead even when it still has native speakers. If there are only a few elderly speakers of a language and they no longer use that language for communication, then the language is almost dead. If no children are learning it as their first language - the language will not continue after the present generation. This is a slow process where each generation learns less and less of the language. In these cases, the transmission of the language from adults to children usually becomes less common . Finally, adults speaking the language will raise children who never learn it properly, or at all.
    As globalisation spreads around the world, more language death seems inevitable. 6% of the world's languages are spoken by 94% of the world's population. The other 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the population. One good example is the Island of New Guinea.  The island has just 0.1% of the world’s population, however its residents speak 16% of the world’s languages! As the tribes of New Guinea become more involved in the world, many of their languages may be lost.
    Although many people feel sad about language death, other people see it as progress. They believe that a single global language, spoken by everyone as