I might be a bit bummed if I was taught to speak a language that I shared with 20 people when I could have learned Spanish.
Re the indigenous language teaching in schools: I suspect it will probably happen as a part of social studies or history classes - just an addition to existing lessons, rather than an independent language class. From my point of view the benefit would be in collecting together all the resources that are just sitting around in archives, currently out of sight and out of mind. It's quite likely there won't be enough information to resurrect the old languages, but at least we'll be able to revisit bits of them.
anyway... Hey Wed7pm! Let me guess when you registered... >From my point of view the benefit would be in collecting together all the resources that are just sitting around in archives... Sounds like reason enough. Preservation of information is a funny thing. First it's a question of recovering info, but then, probably more importantly, there is the matter of how and where you store it. Just moving from one medium to another might only stave off obscurity for so long. Imagine all of the people that slaved for hours transferring documents to microfilm.
And the preservation of information certainly is a funny thing. I hadn't really considered the idea till you mentioned it, but maybe a language can only live if it's used, rather than just preserved. Maybe it's not primarily information but a technology (in the sense of being a technique or a medium).
I suggest prologging. :) Conservation itself is a funny thing, in a sense. I mean, it is all a matter of timescales, right? Tangent alert: I was just looking at some rock on Lake Superior this weekend that was 2.5 billion years old. That is 2500 millions of years. Humanity doesn't even exist compared to that rock. I'm not saying that we shouldn't conserve, I do think we should. But really, will we even be able to conserve ourselves? That rock would probably bet against us. (Sorry, but I just drove 10 hours.)
As for conserving humans over the long-term: nah. I bet we'll be gone relatively soon, looked at from a rock's perspective. Fair enough too. No other species makes such a mess of the place :) Earth will probably be glad to see the end of us.
I'd say that's pretty good reason. Just being mindful of yourself and your surroundings. -Respecting what we have, remembering what we have done. Yep, that seems more than reason enough to me. I agree that we'll probably be a flash in the pan. Poof! :)
The story of the Aboriginal people is a tragic one but it's my understanding that the Australian govt. has taken great steps towards their preservation in the past decade.
I'm sure there are some proper philosophers here on hubski though that can give this a proper answer. P.S. Good morning :)
A good morning to you, whenever it rolls around again :)
Oh, but it is!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Hebrew