The question of whether languages shape the way we think

go back centuries; Charlemagne proclaimed that “to have a second 【M1】__________

language is to have a second soul”. But the idea went out of favor to 【M2】__________

scientists when Noam Chomsky’s theories of language gained popularity

in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Chomsky proposed that there was a 【M3】__________

universal grammar for all human languages—essentially, that languages

don’t really differ from one another in significant ways. And because

languages didn’t differ from one another, the theory went, it made none 【M4】__________

sense to ask whether linguistic differences led to differences in thinking.

The search for the linguistic universals yielded interesting 【M5】__________

data on languages, and after decades of work, not a single 【M6】__________

proposing universal has withstood scrutiny. Instead, as linguists probed 【M7】__________

deeper into the world’s languages (7,000 or so, only a fraction of them

analyzed), innumerable predictable differences emerged. 【M8】__________

Of course, just because people talk differently doesn’t necessarily

mean they think differently. In the past decade, cognitive scientists

have begun to measure not just how people talk, also how they think, 【M9】__________

asking whether our understanding of even such fundamental domains of

experience like space, time and causality could be constructed by 【M10】_________

language.

While the news seems to highlight the mounting

external and internal pressures that are driving language

endangerment. not all languages are endangering. Many languages have 【M1】__________

well-establishing oral and literary traditions and are being used for a 【M2】__________

wide variety of functions in society. Many other communities, which

have not achieved that status for their languages, are therefore taking 【M3】__________

steps to preserve the vitality of their languages by finding new ways of

using them. Ethnologue records and reports data about these aspects of

language use under the rubric of language development.

The term language development can be used in both an individual

and a societal sense. It is commonly used among psychologists and

educators with inference to individuals to refer to the phenomenon of 【M4】__________

child language acquisition. Charles Ferguson who defined language 【M5】__________

development at the societal level as primarily dealing with three areas of

concern: graphization, standardization and modernization. These

development activities are now generally known as language planning

activities, subsumed specially within what is called “corpus planning”. 【M6】__________

More broadly, Ethnologue defines language development as follows:

Language development is the result of the series of on-going planned

actions that language communities take to assure that they can 【M7】__________

effectively use their languages to achieve their social, cultural, political,

economic, and spiritual goals.

As Ferguson proposed, those planned actions most often consist in 【M8】__________

the development of writing systems and the elaboration of terminology

designed to expand the functions of language in a society. Language 【M9】__________

development activities may also go well within corpus planning and cover 【M10】_________

a broad range of activities including advocacy on behalf of minority

languages and other actions outside of the realm of linguistics proper.

Supermarkets, retailers and drinks companies should be forced to

pay significantly more towards the recycling of the plastic packaging

they sell, an influential committee of MPs has said.

Members of the Environmental Audit Committee called for a

societal change in the UK to reduce the 7. 7bn plastic water bottles used

each year, and embed a culture of carrying reusable containers which 【M1】__________

refilled at public water fountains and restaurants, cafes, sports centres

and fast food outlets.

British consumers use 13bn plastic bottles a year, but only 7.5bn are

recycled. MPs said the introduction of a plastic bottle deposit return

scheme (DRS) was key to reduce plastic waste in the UK, as part of a 【M2】_________

series of measures to reduce littering and increase recycling rates.

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has called for evidence on

plastic bottle deposit scheme, and it is expected to be part of measures 【M3】_________

he announced in the new year. Major retailers have not yet announced

to support such a scheme, and Iceland and the Co-op recently announced 【M4】_________

their backing for the DRS. The report publishing on Friday underlines 【M5】_________

the need for government intervention to tackle with plastic waste in the 【M6】_________

UK and calls for higher charges on companies to attribute to clearing up 【M7】_________

the waste they create. Mary Creagh, a chair of the Environmental 【M8】_________

Audit Committee, said, “Urgent action is needed to protect our

environment from the devastated effects of marine plastic pollution, 【M9】_________

which, unless it continues to rise at current rates, will outweigh fish by 【M10】________

1. Plastic bottles make up a third of all plastic pollution in the sea

and are a growing litter problem on UK beaches. We need action at

individual, council, regional and national levels to turn back

the plastic tide.”