2018年全国卷英语高考试题（含答案）(2)

ago, when theworld had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 12,000 languages between them.

Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, andtheir languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialization, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsoryeducation,especially globalisation and better communications in the past few decades, allhave caused many languages todisappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.zxxk

At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages ishugely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, oftenspoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europehas only around 200 languages; the Americas about1,000; Africa 2 400; and Asia andthe Pacific perhaps 3,200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. Themedian number (中位数)of speakers is a mere 6,000, which means that half the world’slanguages are spoken by fewer people than that.

Already well over 400 of the total of, 6,800 languages are close to extinction(消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busuu in Cameroon (eight remaining speakers),Chiapaneco in Mexico(150), Lipan Apache in the United States(two or three)or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark): none of these seems to have much chance of survival.

28. What can we infer about languages in hunter-gatherer times?

A.They developed very fast. B. They were large in number. C. They had similar patterns. D. They were closely connected. 29. Which of the following best explains\？