It is a matter of practical need.
Do we need dozens of languages in the world?
No! Best to have just one?
But we are stuck with many.
Which keeps interpreters busy.
But only the main language used by a whole country should be 'saved'?
The less languages we have, the better?
It makes communication so much easier.

I was waiting for some idiot to compare the aboriginal languages to Latin and SR did not disappoint.

Latin is not studied to speak, but rather enables one to read the texts from 1000s of years of civilization that built much of the foundation on which we live today wrt to language, law, etc. None of which local indigenous languages can provide.

I'm not fluent in any Indigenous language so I
can't really make judgements about them.
I know that Papa was raised by the Jesuits and
he knew Latin very well.

I looked up some of the dead languages and I saw
Latin, Coptic, Biblical Hebrew, Sanskrit, Akkadian
and Sumerian listed.

Language death wipes out not just languages
but generations of unique history and culture.
Do we really want to see long lists giving us
hundreds of dead languages?

Hopefully - most of us would prefer to see the
re-vitalization of languages.

Foxy,

I agree I put the village idiot in his place, but then you are always there to back him up. What's the female for idiot?

On the other hand, new languages are forming around us all the time.

Unlike Latin which has been remarkably stable over the centuries, English has changed quickly as comparison of the same text over the last six centuries will show. Chaucer was only about 160 years before Shakespeare. And look at the change since then - even in our own times.

When I was a kid in the 60s, I lived in Papua. 'Pigeon English' or Tok Pijin as it is known now, originated in communications between Europeans and natives. Shorn of grammatical inflections it was simple but liable to ambiguity and confusion. Since then it has become the market language between natives speaking different local languages, and a national language of government. Three generations have grown up speaking Pijin as their mother tongue. These have given it a range of grammatical inflections lacking in the original pijin. This shows the process of rapid language evolution.

Also in our time, languages across the world have adopted many words from English. The French even had a government body trying to stop this process, and promulgate new words to replace Franglish expressions like "le weekend" and "le parking". But it was all in vain.

Policies to either stop language development or resuscitate moribund languages show a fundamental misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, of what language is and where it comes from.

Notice that the only people willing to contend that dying indigenous languages are "worth saving" are those with either a vested interest, or those who don't intend to actually learn them themselves, indifferent to the cost they expect to shuck off onto others.

Typical of the gubbas to come up with this kinda shite.

Cumberland,
I lived in Rabaul and Moresby for a time in the 60s. My previous locations had been Alice Springs and Darwin. A bit of a change. Interesting times.
Take it easy.
SD