Dying Languages

This article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/12language.html?ref=science

    In America, there are really only two languages: English and not-English. Sure, other languages come into play but everyone in this country has to know how to speak English or they will not survive. And this rings true for most developed countries and their particular primary language. The number of major languages in developed countries can usually be counted on one or two hands. However, there are tons upon tons of languages in the world—a number so high that it is difficult to grasp for many English-only speakers. What other languages could there be besides the main ones? It is this extreme barrier that John Noble Wilford, the writer of the story, takes advantage of as he writes about the little-known language, Koro, in the New York Times—a publication only English-speaking people would read.  
    The story has a terrific lead that hooks you in the second paragraph with an astounding fact: “On average, every two weeks one of the world’s recorded 7,000 languages becomes extinct.” Wilbur goes on to say that language experts have traveled India and discovered a new but extremely rare language called Koro. Only 800 people are estimated to speak it. 
    What the story lacked was some context for language science. What do linguists do? What is defined as a “language”? What is a “dialect’? A “tongue”? How do these rare languages develop and what does it mean for two languages to be related? The story did well in following the inverse pyramid: it certainly became less and less interesting, but brief answers to these questions may have put the tiny language of Koro into a more meaningful perspective.