The Decline Of Human Cultural Diversity

In most cases, some people think that it is not important for them that several languages die out every year because they believe that if there are fewer languages in the world that means they need not to learn so many languages at all and their life will be easier to have a communication with foreign people. While others do not think so, which sound reasonable but ironical based on the fickle situation in society and history. Because for me, despite the adventure of being entitled as ‘absolutist’, I will consistently support that it is significant to prevent the truth that several languages die out every year.

This article written by Mark Nathan Cohen, who is an anthropology professor in the State University of New York; talks about how race does not define human diversity. In the article, he also mentions that in school students learn the definition of race based on “biological variation” and not based on their culture. The professor Cohen says that studies on human family tree that were based on their genetic analysis of traits do not show any relation of who those traits belong to. He gives an example by stating that even skin color is not a god indicator of who it relates to because the “traits occur independently in several different branches of the human family.”

The United States of America is a perfect example of cultural diversity. Starting with the Mayflower landing in Massachusetts Bay in 1620, to the Great Migration from 1915 to 1930, to the continual immigration into our country today this country has seen its culture grow and reshape itself over the years. The culture of the United States is diverse but understanding and appreciating various cultures does not always exist within today’s classroom or in today’s society. Understanding or even defining cultural diversity , identifying the challenges cultural diversity brings, or how to face cultural diversity are all issues educators face in today’s classroom.

The second concept I am going to talk about is language endangerment. Language endangerment is basically when the language is at risk of becoming extinct in the near future. Every language face a different level of threat. There are many different levels of endangerment which

The reason for a language’s death having little importance is that it is just a tool for communication. Any tool can be replaced. For example, “The very thing that made it a mistake for the missionaries to try to stop people from speaking Native American languages…makes it a mistake to care whether people continue to speak (it’s not as if English is worse).” (Michaels, 2006) English became the tool for communication, replacing the Native American languages. This happens to places where a new language is introduced, and begins to grow more popular compared to the native language, for some type of need. This leads to the dominating language to become the lingua franca.

threatened or endangered, and which are the languages that have the fewest speakers in the

The book also explores how despite immigration seeing as a normality in the Silicon Valley area, most of the interaction is shaped by differences in ethnic and racial traits. Jimenez explains that “the way that interviewees articulated the “us” and “them” in their lives comported with social-scientific research that emphasizes ethnic and racial differences as sources of both unity and division” (Jimenez, 2017). Although the cultural diversity is so ingrained in the community of Silicon Valley, this diversity is also a constant reminder of the racial and ethnic differences in the community which could sometimes generate negative outcomes. It does not only serve as a source of unity, like with the mixed culture it generates, but it also could

Throughout history there has been a cluster of tension and conflict between police and minority communities within the United States. The job of a police officer is to enforce the law and protect all citizens regardless of their race, gender, or sexual preferences; however, more and more police departments across the United States are being accused of targeting and harassing those who are different. State and local police departments have been left to their own devices on how to police minority communities and improve cultural differences among their officers by seeking out a reform recruitment and adjusting policies in hopes to attract a significant improvement of minority applicants, all while training other officers in understanding

In Vanishing Voices by Russ Rymer, the author gives readers an in depth overview of the significant loss in the number of languages over the years. “One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?” he asks. A major argument Rymer includes in his essay is that languages are seeming to “compete” with one another. Parents children who speak tribal languages encourage their children to break away and learn to speak major languages such as English, Spanish, or

For those languages which have no written form, when the language dies off, so does the accumulated knowledge and history of the culture. Sadly, indigenous languages around the world are dying off at an alarming rate. It is estimated that nearly half of the languages spoken today are likely to die off within the next century if steps are not taken to preserve those which still exist.

Although I am middle-aged, I have never traveled outside of the United States nor have I had the privilege to experience a wide diversity of cultures. Other than research or articles that I have read throughout my life, I have little knowledge pertaining to other cultures. However, through my former employment and my daughter, I have some experience and knowledge of the Hispanic families that relocated to our area.

So today I am supposed to stand here in front of you guys and talk to you about cultural diversity. What exactly is cultural diversity you ask? It’s the diverse varieties of different ethnic groups within a society. So with that being said I would like to take this time and share with you some of the background of my cultural background, which is Italian. I wanted to cover the important topics such as, their movement to the U.S, The Mafia, and most importantly.. their food!

Jeremy, I enjoyed reading your discussion piece and found myself agreeing with your perspective. I too fell as though society is commonly uninformed when it comes to other religions. One of my favorite quotes comes from Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) who stated that the most dangerous phrase in the language is “We’ve always done it this way”. I truly believe that education is the key to many aspects of life, including religion.

Approximately 7,000 languages exist in the world today. Scientistsestimate that by the year 2100, only 200 languages will remain. Languagescan go extinct for a variety of reasons. In the modern world, lesser knownlanguages are often overtaken by more dominant languages. Other languagesare spoken by such few people, they simply go extinct once the remainingindividuals are no longer living. Languages can only survive if peopledocument them and continue to speak them. In a world where 85 of the global population speak one or more of only100 languages, it is often surprising to learn that thousands of languagesexist in the world. Many of these languages are found in indigenouspopulations. Approximately, 400 Native American languages existed beforethe

Today our society is built of different cultures and races. Cultural Diversity is a “diverse group in society, with varying racial classifications and national origins, religion affiliations, language, physical size, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, and geographic locations” (Taylor, 2014, p.74). Nurses need to know the different types of cultures in our society in order to provide adequate care to clients with a different cultural background. As nurses, we need to understand that each client has different values and beliefs which are learned from families and communities. These values and beliefs can influence client’s health. For example, Muslim clients may refuse prescriptions containing gelatin, pork products, or alcohol while Jewish clients may be prohibited the use of the patient-controlled analgesia pump because it might be considered work during a Sabbath day (Arritt, 2014). These two cultures are different from the American culture in many ways, but they all need a good health care regardless of their values and beliefs.