In the articles quoted below, the various writers are concerned about the decline of languages, and, concommitantly, cultures, from our world, and the impact that globalization and the internet may have on them...

Language has long been equated with cultural clout - the "perfect instrument of empire," as Spain's Queen Isabella was said to have been told by an adviser. Today, the world's empires may be in retreat but active movements to leverage language for power have surged worldwide...

Sitting in a circle with a dozen other members of the native American Tlingit (pronounced klink-it) tribe, Jon Rowan, a 33-year-old schoolteacher, mutters in frustration: "We're babies. All we speak is baby gibberish." The group is gathered at the community center in Klawock, a town of some 800 people on the eastern fringe of Prince of Wales Island...

Each of the previous articles, while having different approaches, are similiar in their message. Assigning the articles to separate groups might be a way of getting to the key issues of causes, manifestations, and possible impacts...

Before reading, or presenting the Horn and Fishman articles to students, the teacher might pose the question: If the United States, and its American English dominates the global economy (and its major communication tool:the Internet) today, what impact might you think that would have on both the world, and the influence of the United States in world affairs?

Establish an atmosphere of a Town Meeting in the classroom; assign four students to read and explain (they may need some assistance) the Crawford rationales for preserving/restoring lost or endangered languages....

Linguists estimate that nearly half the world's 6,500 languages are threatened...