[gruez]

>It'd also be easier if everyone painted all their houses the same color, ate the same foods all the time, and lived in a universally cookie cutter world, but that'd be terribly boring.

not a fair comparison. learning a second language takes much more resources (time and money) than having different paint colors or food choices.

[tmountain]

Putting energy into cultural preservation of languages (learned at birth in the case of the article), is a different proposition than asking someone to learn them from scratch later in life. The question boils down to what is worth saving and investing in, and why we place value on those things.