language extinction and culture loss

1. John McWhorter, a well know linguist, disagrees with most anthropologists regarding the link between language and culture loss. He argues that the loss of a language does NOT equate with the loss of a culture. He presents his views in: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/cosmopolitan-tongue-universality-english
What arguments does he put forward in support of his viewpoint?
The question "what causes a potential language extinction emotionally charged is the belief that if it dies, a worldview of culture dies with it" was postulated by John McWhorter. He explained that the pronunciations of words such as "digusting" can be pronuonced in different ways. However, various languages rarely portrays different cultural framework. Humanity has a single culture with many languages just as whales in water behave similarly but are different in songs. McWhorter does well to argue that it is paramount that we preserve all pods of whales as the particular songs they have develop. The way the human language is diverse is subject to an elevation: each as a result of a dices’ roll.
He argues that the main loss of languages is aesthetic: He says “The click sounds in certain African languages are magnificent to hear. In many Amazonian languages, when you say something you have to specify, with a suffix, where you got the information. The Ket language of Siberia is so awesomely irregular as to seem a work of art.” He suggests, in the end, that the loss of language is a price we have to pay for globalization.
2. What does McWhorter say about the following: why native languages go extinct; why many people are uncomfortable with the increasing importance of English in the world; and the future possibility of a single language in the world.
McWhorter said that the native language go extinct as a result of globalization. Cultures become fragmented when people migrate to new areas. Cultures that are lesser known struggle to survive leaving wide spoken languages like English to swallow them and wipe them out. He also says that urbanization is also a factor that causes language death. Wondrous features of cities, to be sure, draw immigrants – increased division of labor, greater economies of scale and decreased search costs – these all made possible by capitalism, in this sense then, languages may die as a result of economic reasons. People leave an environment where sociological benefits and network effects exist for using their native language, and end up exchanging it for a greater range of possibilities caused by the change in economics.
There is an increase of Englicized compulsory education that is standardized and Anglified. Children are at times punished (mostly corporally) for using their native language in school. They are removed from the socialization process at home and forcibly required to speak an official language, mainly English. the most significant impact of compulsory state education is that it roots in children the impression that their language and their culture is rubbish, of no use in the modern classroom or society, and that it is something that simply aids in setting them apart negatively from their peers, as an entity of their spiteful nuisance.
John McWhorter notes that thriving languages like English grow a complexity over time but would still function without some words and very many irregular verbs. The increase in trade kills cultural practices that end up killing some languages giving rise to a combination of languages. Trade between English speaking nation with the increase of English speaking population leaves an entrenched English diversity. This ends up increasing the language use even more bringing an end of the natively spoken language. Migration also causes intellectual separation of clans and tribes not only geographically but also economically.
3. Describe the ‘Enduring Voices Project’ website mentioned on page 242 of your textbook. Note that the web address should be:
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/enduring-voices/
In the case that a language starts showing signs of dying the call for help doesn’t exist. Enduring voices project comes to the scene consistently with a determination to pinpoint a reason for the decline in the language and how it can be revitalized. The project was started in 2007 as subset of LTI (living Tongues Institute) for endangered languages in Oregon, Salem. The project aims at spreading the awareness of the language’s loss and map’s out the dispersion of languages globally. In the website, it is stated that more than a third of the world’s languages are on the verge of extinction. The organization has since then established significant and extensive impacts on preserving languages. There is a whole lot that needs to be done.
4. What is your own opinion of this issue? Do you agree with McWhorter? Why / why not?
I agree with McWhorter in most of his arguments like urbanization and trade increasing the spread of the English Language. Most people never give up the language they mostly use in their youth. Most people using the English language are the Youth as they’ve come to know it as an Official Language and one has to keep up with the bar. This has caused and will continue bringing up an increase in the use of English. The children generation after the other will continue losing their native languages to English and expanding the use of English to other heights. There is a need for language unification and the world speak only one language and I think the language will be English.