【推荐1】One of the main challenges facing many countries is how to maintain their identity in the face of globalization and the growing multi-language trend. “One of the main reasons for economic failure in many African countries is the fact that, with a few important exceptions, mother-tongue education is not practiced in any of the independent African states.” said Neville Alexander, Director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa at the University of Cape Town.

In response to the spread of English and the increased multi-language trends arising from immigration, many countries have introduced language laws in the last decade. In some, the use of languages other than the national language is banned in public spaces such as advertising posters. One of the first such legal provisions (规定) was the 1994 “Toubon law” in France, and the idea has been copied in many countries since then. Such efforts to govern language use are often considered as futile by language experts, who are well aware of the difficulty in controlling fashions in speech and know from research that language switching among bilinguals is a natural process.

It is especially difficult for native speakers of English to understand the desire to maintain the “purity” of a language by law. Since the time of Shakespeare, English has continually absorbed foreign words into its own language. English is one of the most mixed and rapidly changing languages in the world, but that has not been a barrier to acquiring superiority and power. Another reason for the failure of many native English speakers to understand the role of the state regulation is that it has never been the Anglo-Saxon way of doing things.

The need to protect national languages is, for most western Europeans, a recent phenomenon, especially the need to ensure that English does not unnecessarily take over too many fields. Public communication, education and new ways of communication promoted by technology may be key fields to defend.

【推荐3】The animal kingdom lost a beloved friend when poachers（偷猎者）in Kenya killed the world famous elephant named Satao solely for his ivory（象牙）, experts say.

Satao was considered by some to be the largest and oldest elephant left in Africa. His tusks having grown long enough to reach the ground. Wandering around Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, he was easily recognizable（可辨认的）by staff and visitors. Sadly, despite conservation efforts, he was killed on May 30, his body identified by park staff on June 2. His head was severely damaged and there were two holes left where his great tusks had

“There is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly greedy demand for ivory in far off countries,” wrote Richard Moller of The Tsavo Trust. “A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket（饰品）.

Satao isn’t the first elephant—and far from the last—to pay the ivory price. Just last month, Mountain Bull, another Kenyan elephant, was killed by poachers.

Kenya Wildlife Service（KWS）says 97 elephants and 20 rhinos have been killed this year, but others say the real numbers are much higher.

The national park in which Satao lived is roughly 386 square miles—a massive land for already thinly-stretched resources to cover. Reports indicate that Satao had started to migrate towards the park’s border-areas known by conservationists（野生保护人士）to be highly active for poaching.

In the late 1960s, more than 275,000 elephants lived in Kenya. Now, that number has dropped to around 38,000, and continues to fall fast.

“If Satao’s death can cause the focus on what’s actually happening here in terms of poaching, then he won’t have died in vain,” said nature documentarian Mark Decble, according to The Dodo.