Portal:Linguistics/Did you know/Queue/1

Hooks
From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:
 * ... that while language extinction has occurred many times throughout history, it has acceler-ated in the 20th and 21st centuries?
 * ... that Swahili is the official language in more countries than Mandarin Chinese, the language with the most native speakers?
 * ... that quirky dogs and plural wugs helped Jean Berko Gleason (pictured) show that young children extract linguistic rules from what they hear, rather than just memorizing words?
 * ... that Georgian ambassador to Israel Lasha Zhvania asked Hebrew speakers to stop calling his country Gruziya?
 * ... that electromagnetic articulography tracks movements of the tongue using electromagnetic induction?