alt Hacker News> political currents don’t have to move in one direction. It’s not inevitable that endangered languages become extinct.
There really isn't any good incentive to learn a language with very few speakers, since unless you already know a speaker, you really can't practice the real language. People were a few years ago at least hoping llms could help preserve the languages, but more most of them, there just aren't enough samples for any real preservation. I knew some dudes in college that were linguists that worked on recording native speakers of endangered languages, and while I hoped they would succeed, I never really had much hope of it working.
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But what good can come from preserving languages that already do not have enough samples?
Do languages have value in themselves?
Unless the language lacks concepts and like scientific recombinateability and the cultural Nexus of youth just moves.
Empirically, the best way to keep a language alive is for a user of that language to write a Great Work in it.
> learn a language with very few speakers
Learn Sanskrit. You were writing in a descendant language just now. If you learnt the roots, you would understand the descendants better. And they are your tools, and knowing your tools is important.
Other more obscure languages? Well, as implied, languages are related... So studying the network clarifies the whole.
People learn Klingon or Esperanto.
You could probably convince me to join a hypothetical “Worshipful society of Gentlemen speaking Sumerian”.