Endangered Languages Reading Answers for IELTS

The Endangered Languages Reading Answers passage focuses on why thousands of languages are disappearing and what this loss means for culture, history, and human identity. In IELTS Reading section, topics like this test your ability to understand cause–effect relationships, identify key arguments, and interpret factual information. Linguistic studies suggest that nearly half of the world’s languages could vanish within this century, making language preservation a globally relevant issue. 

This blog explains the passage in a clear, exam-focused way, helping you approach question types such as matching headings, true/false/not given, and multiple choice with confidence. By practising with structured explanations, you can improve reading accuracy, time management, and overall performance in IELTS exam.

Key Highlights: 

Key Focus	Details
IELTS Section	Reading (Academic & General)
Time Required	20 minutes (recommended practice)
Difficulty Level	Medium
Passage Type	Factual / Informative
Common Question Types	Matching headings, T/F/NG, MCQs

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IELTS Reading Passage: "Endangered Languages" Answers Passage

The passage below, "Endangered Languages," is a very common Reading passage in the IELTS exam. Read the passage to answer Questions 1—14 given below.

Endangered Languages Reading Passage

Paragraph A: ‘Nevermind whales, save the languages’, says Peter Monaghan, a graduate of the Australian National University Worried about the loss of rainforests and the ozone. Where is the layer at linguistics meetings in the US? Well, neither of those is doing any worse than the endangered-language issue that has of late been a large majority of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages that are something of a flavour of the month; they remain in use on Earth. One-half of the survivors will show growing evidence that not all approaches to this will almost certainly be gone by 2050, while 40% more preservation of languages will be particularly will probably be well on their way out. In their place, helpful. Some linguists boast that, for example, almost all humans will speak one of a handful of more and more sophisticated means of capturing mega languages – Mandarin, English, and Spanish.

Paragraph B: Linguists know what causes languages to disappear, but less often remarked is what happens on the way to disappearance: languages’ vocabularies, grammar, and expressive potential all diminish as one language is replaced by another. ‘Say a community goes over from speaking a traditional Aboriginal language to speaking a creole*,’ says Australian Nick Evans, a leading authority on Aboriginal languages, ‘you leave behind a language where there’s a very fine vocabulary for the landscape. All that is gone in a creole. You’ve just got a few words like ‘gum tree’ or whatever. As speakers become less able to express the wealth of knowledge that has filled ancestors’ lives with meaning over millennia, it’s no wonder that communities tend to become demoralised.’

Paragraph C: If the losses are so huge, why are relatively few linguists combating the situation? Australian linguists, at least, have achieved a great deal in terms of preserving traditional languages. Australian governments began in the 1970s to support an initiative that has resulted in good documentation of most of the 130 remaining Aboriginal languages. In England, another Australian, Peter Austin, has directed one of the world’s most active efforts to limit language loss at the University of London. Austin heads a program that has trained many documentary linguists in England as well as in language-loss hotspots such as West Africa and South America.

Paragraph D: At linguistics meetings in the US, where the endangered language issue has of late been something of a flavour of the month, there is growing evidence that not all approaches to the preservation of languages will be particularly helpful. Some linguists boast, for example, of more and more sophisticated means of capturing languages: digital recording and storage, as well as internet and mobile phone technologies. But these are encouraging the ‘quick dash’ style of recording trips: fly-in, switch on a digital recorder, fly home, download to the hard drive, and store gathered material for future research. That’s not quite what some endangered language specialists have been seeking for more than 30 years. Most loud and untiring has been Michael Krauss of the University of Alaska. He has often complained that linguists are playing with non-essentials while most of their raw data is disappearing.

Paragraph E: Who is to blame? That prominent linguist Noam Chomsky, Krauss, and many others. Or, more precisely, they blame those linguists who have been obsessed with his approaches. Linguists who go out into communities to study, document, and describe languages argue that theoretical linguists, who draw conclusions about how languages work, have had so much influence that linguistics has largely ignored the continuing disappearance of languages. Chomsky, from his post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been a great man of theoretical linguistics for far longer than he has been known as a political commentator. His landmark work of 1957 argues that all languages exhibit certain universal grammatical features encoded in the human mind. American linguists, in particular, have focused largely on theoretical concerns ever since, even while doubts have mounted about Chomsky’s universal.

Paragraph F: Austin and Co. are in no doubt that because languages are unique, even if they do tend to have common underlying features, creating dictionaries and grammar requires prolonged and dedicated work. This requires that documentary linguists observe not only languages’ structural subtleties but also related social, historical, and political factors. Such work calls for persistent funding of field scientists who may sometimes have to venture into harsh and even hazardous places. Once there, they may face difficulties such as community suspicion. As Nick Evans says, a community that speaks an endangered language may have reasons to doubt or even oppose efforts to preserve it. They may have seen support and funding for such work come and go. They may have given up using the language with their children, believing they will benefit from speaking a more widely understood one. Plenty of students continue to be drawn to the intellectual thrill of linguistics fieldwork. That’s all the more reason to clear away barriers, contend Evans, Austin, and others.

Paragraph G: The highest barrier, they agree, is that the linguistics profession’s emphasis on theory gradually wears down the enthusiasm of linguists who work in communities. Chomsky disagrees. He has recently begun to speak in support of language preservation. But his linguistic, as opposed to the humanitarian, argument is, let’s say, unsentimental: the loss of a language, he states, ‘is much more of a tragedy for linguists whose interests are mostly theoretical, like me, than for linguists who focus on describing specific languages, since it means the permanent loss of the most relevant data for general theoretical work’. At the moment, few institutions award doctorates for such work, and that’s the way it should be, he reasons. In linguistics, as in every other discipline, he believes that good descriptive work requires thorough theoretical understanding and should also contribute to building new theories. But that’s precisely what documentation does, objects Evans. The process of immersion in a language, to extract, analyse and sum it up, deserves a Ph.D. because it is ‘the most demanding intellectual task a linguist can engage in’.

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Endangered Languages IELTS Reading Questions 

Questions and Answers 1-6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write:

YES if the statement agrees with the information given

NO if the statement contradicts the information given

NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this

1. By 2050, only a small number of languages will be flourishing.

2. Australian academics’ efforts to record existing Aboriginal languages have been too limited.

3. The use of technology In language research is proving unsatisfactory in some respects.

4. Chomsky’s political views have overshadowed his academic work.

5. Documentary linguistics studies require long-term financial support.

6. Chomsky’s attitude to disappearing languages is too emotional.

Questions and Answers 7-10

Choose the correct letter: A, B, C, or D.

7. The writer mentions rainforests and the ozone layer.

A. Because he believes anxiety about environmental issues is unfounded.

B. To demonstrate that academics in different disciplines share the same problems.

C. Because they exemplify what is wrong with the attitudes of some academics.

D. To make the point that the public should be equally concerned about languages.

8. What does Nick Evans say about speakers of creole?

A. They lose the ability to express ideas that are part of their culture.

B. Older and younger members of the community have difficulty communicating.

C. They express their ideas more clearly and concisely than most people.

D. Accessing practical information causes problems for them.

9. What is similar about West Africa and South America, from the linguist’s point of view?

A. The English language is widely used by academics and teachers.

B. The documentary linguists who work there were trained by Australians.

C. Local languages are disappearing rapidly in both places.

D. There are now only a few undocumented languages there.

10. Michael Krauss has frequently pointed out that.

A. Linguists are failing to record languages before they die out.

B. Linguists have made poor use of improvements in technology.

C. Linguistics has declined in popularity as an academic subject.

D. Linguistics departments are underfunded in most universities.

Questions and Answers 11-14

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G below.

Write the correct letter A - G in boxes 11 - 14 on your answer sheet.

11. Linguists like Peter Austin believe that every language is unique

12. Nick Evans suggests a community may resist attempts to save its language

13. Many young researchers are interested in doing practical research

14. Chomsky supports work in descriptive linguistics

A. even though it is in danger of disappearing.

B. provided that it has a strong basis in theory.

C. although it may share certain universal characteristics

D. because there is a practical advantage to it

E. so long as the drawbacks are clearly understood.

F. in spite of the prevalence of theoretical linguistics.

G. until they realise what is involved

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Endangered Languages IELTS Reading Answers 

Answers (1–6): True / False / Not Given

Q. No	Answer	Explanation
1	YES	Paragraph A states that most surviving languages are expected to disappear by 2050, leaving only a few dominant languages.
2	NO	Paragraph C explains that Australian governments supported documentation efforts, which contradicts the idea that no action was taken.
3	YES	Paragraph D highlights evidence showing some preservation methods, like quick recording trips, are ineffective.
4	NOT GIVEN	The passage does not provide information to confirm or deny this statement.
5	YES	Paragraph F mentions the need for long-term funding and researchers working in difficult conditions.
6	NO	Paragraph G clarifies that Chomsky considers language loss a tragedy for linguistics, not something insignificant.

Answers (7–10): Multiple Choice

Q. No	Answer	Explanation
7	D	Paragraph A stresses the urgency of saving languages over other conservation issues.
8	A	Paragraph B explains how losing a language also means losing cultural and environmental knowledge.
9	C	Paragraph C identifies West Africa and South America as major language-loss regions.
10	A	Paragraph D shows Krauss’s criticism that linguists focus on less important issues while data disappears.

Answers (11–14): Sentence Completion

Q. No	Answer	Explanation
11	C	Paragraph F notes that languages are unique despite sharing underlying features.
12	A	Paragraph F explains that communities may stop passing the language on to children.
13	F	Paragraph F highlights continued student interest in fieldwork and the need to remove barriers.
14	B	Paragraph G states that strong theoretical understanding is required for effective descriptive work.

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Conclusion

Working through Endangered Languages Reading Answers helps you build the core skills needed to handle factual and issue-based passages in IELTS. By understanding how ideas are organised and learning to spot key details, you can answer questions more accurately and avoid common traps. Regular practice with passages like this improves reading speed, strengthens vocabulary awareness, and boosts confidence under exam conditions. With the right approach, you’ll be better prepared to score higher in the IELTS Reading section.

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