Yes, I’d be happy to learn a new language if it was the step to one unified language. Of course there is no way to back that up since it will never happen but I at least assume I’d do it if that was the case.
Would you not feel even slightly unhappy that your children (or grandchildren) would not be able to read the original versions of Shakespeare, Dickens, or Austen or that they wouldn't be able to watch the original versions of movies and shows you've enjoyed? They would only be able to watch and read translations, and all of the linguistic artistry would be lost to them.
It's not just about becoming bilingual, a population becoming bilingual in a "prestige language" is the first stage of language death (though of course it doesn't /always/ lead to language death).
That isn't the case for every language, I'm just trying to come up with an equivalent explanation of why wishing for languages to die out is a bad thing.
How would you feel about being the one that has to teach your children a language that will hinder their prospects instead of one that will help them succeed, just so that the speakers of the bigger language feel good about themselves that they are good people or something?
I could not think of a more obvious way of telling everyone that you are monolingual than implying that knowing another language is a burden. Children are not burdened by being multilingual.
It is true that social pressures kill off local languages, but it's usually not because parents don't want to teach their children their mother tongue, it's that people stop using the language to communicate because of the influence of the "prestige language". My parents (and all of the parents in the immigrant community I live in) went through great pains to teach their children their native language.
English is, of course, my second language, maybe that's why you didn't quite grasp what I was saying.
The burden is not in knowing another language, the burden is in making the "less useful" language your main one.
Your parents and all of the parents in the immigrant community you live in are very happy that English is now your main language which you acquired through school, friends, tv etc. Or maybe they put you in your-language-only schools, made sure you socialized with your-language-only friends and watched your-language-only media?
I don’t think I my prospects in any way is hindered by being a native speaker of a fairly small language. If anything, I prefer having English as a second language.
How would you feel if your kids only learned Chinese[1], and not a word of English?