[tetris11]

> Sure, things are lost, but were they valuable other than to students of history?

I detest this line of thinking because it assigns more worth to things that yield immediate results, or places a low importance on the impact of history.

Were Fermat's theorems valuable only to students of Mathematics, or did they inspire some of the greatest minds to later push the envelope in many unrelated fields?

[lelanthran]

> I detest this line of thinking because it assigns more worth to things that yield immediate results, or places a low importance on the impact of history.

I don't think it does; not all things are equally valuable, and the odds are low that some of the dying languages have anything of value, compared to reading or listening to global affairs.

Personally, I detest this line of thinking: some old/primitive/superstition/traditional thing is valuable just by being.

No, not all existing things are valuable.

> Were Fermat's theorems valuable only to students of Mathematics, or did they inspire some of the greatest minds to later push the envelope in many unrelated fields?

We aren't talking about Fermat, we're talking about primitive languages, for which there are hundreds of multiple better replacements.

[tetris11]

The problem with your argument is that it assumes that the value and potential of a product is wholly known in the present, when this is often far from the case: we constantly learn new things about seemingly static entities, and the insights that we develop from them enrich other aspects of our society.

Without studying language we wouldn't have understandings of innate grammars, the psychology that develops from these understandings, the marketability from that subsequent understanding, and then finally how to make money from it (if this is how one defines value....)

[lelanthran]

> The problem with your argument is that it assumes that the value and potential of a product is wholly known in the present,

No, it doesn't. It uses the fact that the probability of gaining anything of value from dying languages is so low that it's probably a rounding error.

> when this is often far from the case: we constantly learn new things about seemingly static entities, and the insights that we develop from them enrich other aspects of our society.

If you're relying on subjective "it enriches us" type of arguments, I'm afraid that that is not very persuasive.

Many argue that prayer is "enriching", after all.

Look, I get that it's feels better to be enriched, but that is not a good measure of "did we learn anything from this that is at all useful?"

> Without studying language we wouldn't have understandings of innate grammars, the psychology that develops from these understandings, the marketability from that subsequent understanding, and then finally how to make money from it (if this is how one defines value....)

We've got 7000+ languages. As far as learning stuff from them, fully 90% of them are redundant.

[tetris11]

Again, "redundant" assumes that they are of no use to us with what we know now, but makes no promises for the future.

Parenting, for example, is a topic that constantly waxes and wanes with paradigms every few years as the prevailing western model is constantly brought under question. One article mentions Inuit parenting[1], a dying language and culture of no use to 99% of people in their daily lives right now, but whose ways of parenting are insightful enough that they could impact future parenting techniques in the western world.

1: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/6855333...

[lelanthran]

I think we're talking past each other. We're both looking at the same future event - getting something of value out of a relatively isolated and unpopular human language.

I'm looking at this event and pointing out that the expected value of this bet is negative[1]. It is, in fact, so negative that there's a better chance of winning a 'let it ride' bet on roulette.

You're looking at this event and pointing out that the odds are non-zero.

I agree - the odds of a dying language making a positive contribution is indeed non-zero. I just don't think that non-zero is a good bar to base expensive decisions on.

> Again, "redundant" assumes that they are of no use to us with what we know now, but makes no promises for the future.

No, "redundant" is being used loosely - the odds of getting something of value from a dying language is nearly insignificant.

> Parenting, for example, is a topic that constantly waxes and wanes with paradigms every few years as the prevailing western model is constantly brought under question. One article mentions Inuit parenting[1],

And nothing[2] that you discover from the Inuit anger-prevention would make humanity more successful than it is right now; the majority of cultures aren't going to switch parenting styles, which, as the article points out, is cultural itself.

Cultures are resistant to change, and child-rearing is deep in every culture. In order for the Inuit method to be widespread, some other cultures have to lose some of their identity.

And, that's even assuming that the Inuit tradition of child-rearing is more successful, and many would argue that if it was, the resulting population of adults would have successfully competed with other cultures over centuries and yet this did not happen.[2]

[1] Because the effort needed to prevent a dying language from dying is high - see the Hebrew example.

[2] Once again, using "nothing" as "the odds of it happening are so low we may as well ignore it"

[3] Maybe there are confounding factors, but I don't care - I'm anticipating what arguments may come, not making them.

[ethanwillis]

What does valuable mean?