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Good-bye to Hello
Every two weeks the world loses another way to say hello. That's because entire languages are vanishing. Scientists who study languages are called linguists. They say that in the next hundred years, half of all the languages spoken on Earth will be extinct.
One language that's in danger of disappearing is called Kayapo. Only 4,000 native people in Brazil speak it. They have words for 56 different kinds of bees. Another language disappearing is spoken by the Nivkh people of eastern Siberia in Russia have twenty six different ways of counting. In Australia there is an endangered language with only one person who still speaks it.
Some languages disappear when the last known speaker of it dies. Others are crowded out as people start using more common languages like English or Spanish. Linguists say that when a language goes away, we lose important information. There might be words for many things that the rest of us don't know about, like different kinds of flowers, or natural medicines that can cure diseases.
Some people who are worried that nobody will speak their language after they're gone are trying to make a spoken record of their language. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes years, but at least we'll still have some documentation of the language. You never know when you'll need another word for hello, or goodbye.
I'm Michelle and that's what happened in the world this week.
Let's play the pinpoint game and locate the countries mentioned in my story.
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