i
depe
de
tofeachother．Somela
guageexpertsbelievethat10，000yearsago，whe
theworldhadjustfivetote
millio
people，theyspokeperhaps12，000la
guagesbetwee
them．
Soo
afterwards，ma
yofthosepeoplestartedsettli
gdow
tobecomefarmers，a
dtheirla
guagestoobecamemoresettleda
dfeweri
umber．I
rece
tce
turies，trade，i
dustrialisatio
，thedevelopme
tofthe
atio
statea
dthespreadofu
iversalcompulsoryeducatio
，especiallyglobalisatio
a
d
fbettercommu
icatio
si
thepastfewdecades，allhavecausedma
yla
guagestodisappear，a
ddomi
a
tla
guagessuchasE
glish，Spa
isha
dChi
esearei
creasi
glytaki
gover．
Atprese
t，theworldhasabout6，800la
guages．Thedistributio
ofthesela
guagesishugelyu
eve
．Thege
eralruleisthatmildzo
eshaverelativelyfewla
guages，ofte
spoke
byma
ypeople，whilehot，wetzo
eshavelots，ofte
spoke
bysmall
umbers．Europehaso
lyarou
d200la
guages；theAmericasabout1，000；Africa2，400；a
dAsiaa
dthePacificperhaps3，200，ofwhichPapuaNewGui
eaalo
eaccou
tsforwellover800．Themedia
umber（中位数）ofspeakersisamere6，000，whichmea
sthathalftheworldsla
guagesarespoke
byfewerpeopletha
that．
Alreadywellover400ofthetotalof6，800la
guagesareclosetoexti
ctio
（消亡），witho
lyafewelderlyspeakersleft．Pick，atra
dom，Busuui
Cameroo
（eightremai
i
gspeakers），Chiapa
ecoi
Mexico（150），Lipa
Apachei
theU
itedStates（twoorthree）orWadjigui
Australia（o
e，withaquestio
mark）：
o
eoftheseseemstohavemuchcha
ceofsurvival．
（1）Whatca
wei
feraboutla
guagesi
hu
tergatherertimes？A．Theydevelopedveryfast．B．Theywerelargei
umber．C．Theyhadsimilarpatter
s．D．Theywerecloselyco
ected．（2）Whichofthefollowi
gbestexplai
s