Vanishing Alaskan languages

Some American languages are endangered-- not English, but the languages of indigenous people of Alaska are threatened.

Krauss suggests the erosion of Native languages could be due to television, which is mostly English and ubiquitous in villages nowadays, and "the likely lethal effect of the 'No Child Left Behind' (federal school mandate), requiring proof of proficiency in English but not Native language."

But he also says that Yup'ik and Inupiaq are being retained at rates much higher than the Aleut and Indian languages. Yup'ik is particularly strong, he writes, accounting for "fully 93 percent of those who speak an Alaskan Native language."

Making business English-only, in Korea

Some businesses in Korea have an English-only mandate.

The company plans to adopt English as the sole official language for all its employees in 2012, according to Kim Sung-dae, director of the OCI public relations office.

"The reason behind this is because exports already account for 80 to 90 percent" of sales, Kim told Yonhap.

The move, of course, comes with huge costs for the companies, not just in terms of money but also in time and energy as communications between their employees are often hampered by their poor English skills.

They, however, say it is a price they are willing to pay.

"We are still in the very early stages of the plan and there must be significant amounts of stress placed on our employees," said the official from Korea East-West Power Co.

"The point is to encourage our employees to continue learning until speaking English becomes natural or sort of a habit."

May have to re-cast the monkeys for the "See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil" icon

Although it may not meet the linguistic standard of language, but it's a compelling argument for evidence that animals use specific sounds as symbolic labels to describe an aspect of the world around them, which is a valid definition of words.