[markdown]

> very language lost erodes identities, stories, and diversity.

But they're lost because they've outlived their usefulness. Language is about communication. A language with which you can only communicate with a tiny minority of the humans on the planet is nowhere near as useful as a global one.

I'm not sure how I feel about linguists and historians who want to preserve a language in place. This gives them joy, but handicaps the children who have to allocate limited resources to learning a language that is pretty much useless outside of their villages or districts. You basically handicap children who were already born into poverty just so you can say you preserved a language.

[nindalf]

You're not wrong about the economic utility of certain languages. However, every language lost is a tragedy. This obituary explains it better than I could.

Marie Smith, last speaker of the Eyak language. http://www.economist.com/node/10640514