Recent Studies on Native American Languages Point towards an Alarming Problem in the United States Today.

Reading Passage Question

Recent studies on Native American languages point towards an alarming problem in the United States today. Language loss, a global phenomenon, is accelerating among indigenous groups in the United States. A large majority of Native American vernaculars are spoken only by elders and the remainder are fast approaching that status, as growing numbers of children speak only English.

To many, the precedence of one “common” language seems like an achievement of globalization and hence they argue that it would be wiser to spend resources on improving the English speaking skills of Native Americans rather than resuscitating fading tongues. However, no language is just a collection of words and, therefore, languages are not so simply substitutable for each other. Each language is a unique tool for analyzing and synthesizing the world and to lose such a tool is to forget a way of constructing reality, blotting out a perspective evolved over many generations. Native American languages express ideas on which Native American cultures are anchored; a native language does not just reflect a culture - in a functional sense it is the culture. These languages are based on entirely different histories, scientific and natural-world understandings, spiritual beliefs, and political and legal ideas. They capture concepts that do not exist in English. In essence, they are based on different realities.

Realising the magnitude of this language-loss, most indigenous tribes today are making some type of effort toward a language-comeback. These efforts include everything from instituting apprenticeship programs, which pair a fluent elder with a student, to using, what may seem like an unusual tool because of the inherent reservations in Native American communities to being photographed or recorded in any form, technology such as YouTube videos of native speakers or Google Hangout video chats for live, long-distance conversations. The idea is to engage the younger members of the tribe who, in their effort to fit into the more popular culture, are quickly losing ties with their unique heritage.

“Recent studies on Native American languages point towards an alarming problem in the United States today.”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 7 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solutions and Explanation

1. Which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with?

1. Because some Native American communities are inherently averse to being photographed or recorded in any form, their languages are at an even greater risk of reaching extinction.
2. Same events can be understood differently across cultures, cultures which do not necessarily share the same contexts.
3. Globalization has had many unintended consequences such as the dominance of English as a language over some ethnic minorities.
4. Although language loss is a global phenomenon, the scale at which it has affected Native American languages is probably the most severe.
5. The younger generation of Native Americans is not as aware of the near extinct state of Native American languages as the older generation is.

2. The author is primarily concerned with

1. To explain the nature of a problem and certain remedial measures being taken for it
2. To present two contradictory perspectives on a problem
3. To explain a problem while proposing a solution to it
4. To corroborate the findings of certain recent studies
5. To appreciate the efforts made to rectify a situation that is not normally seen as a problem

3. Which of the following can be inferred from the statement below?

...a native language does not just reflect a culture - in a functional sense it is the culture.

1. A native language does not by itself stand for a culture.
2. Native American cultures are rooted in ideas that do not exist in some of the other popular languages.
3. Even when a native language does not portray a culture, it could be the culture itself.
4. The culture a native language reflects is more than the ideas expressed in it.
5. A native language is synonymous with the culture it is spoken in.

4. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?

1. Majority of the Native American tribes are aware of the scale of the problem of language-loss in their culture.
2. There are more chances of engaging Native American youth with their culture through the use of technology than through other means.
3. Most of the Native American languages today are spoken only by the elders of the indigenous communities.
4. Use of audio-visual mediums by Native Americans to resuscitate their languages could seem like an odd choice.
5. More than a few people think that language loss in Native American cultures is not really a problem.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• A Recent Study has Provided Clues to Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Late Pleistocene Era.
• Citing the Fact that the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was Higher in 1997
• The General Density Dependence Model can be Applied to Explain the Founding of Specialist Firms
• In the 1980's, Astronomer Bohdan Paczynski Proposed a Way of Determining Whether the Enormous Dark Halo Constituting the Outermost Part of the Milky Way Galaxy
• The United States Hospital Industry is an Unusual Market in that Nonprofit and For-Profit Producers Exist Simultaneously.
• Although the Industrial Union Organizations that Emerged Under the Banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
• According to P. F. Drucker, The Management Philosophy Known as Total Quality Management
• The United States Government has a Long-Standing Policy of Using Federal Funds to Keep Small Business Viable.
• Comparable Worth, as a Standard Applied to Eliminate Inequities in Pay
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War
• Solar Ponds are Bodies of Water in Which Circulation is Incomplete and There is a Very High Salt Concentration that Increases with Depth
• More Selective than Most Chemical Pesticides in that they Ordinarily Destroy only Unwanted Species
• Historians have Identified Two Dominant Currents in the Russian Women's Movement of the Late Tsarist Period.
• The Professionalization of the Study of History in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
• Conventional Wisdom has it that Large Deficits in the United States Budget Cause Interest Rates to Rise.
• In a New Book About the Antiparty Feeling of the Early Political Leaders of the United States
• The System of Patent-Granting, Which Confers Temporary Monopolies for the Exploitation of New Technologies
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Ethnohistoric Documents from Sixteenth-Century Mexico Suggesting that Weaving and Cooking were the Most Common Productive Activities for Aztec Women
• The Black Death, a Severe Epidemic that Ravaged Fourteenth Century Europe