Points for many of the world’s languages face extinction.
• For historical reasons to prevent loss of heritage
• world’s languages face extinction because oral history can easily be forgotten
• Helps us to evaluate how languages work, not, for example, ‘I am
reading’ but ‘I sit reading’ or ‘I stand reading’
• Education entirely in a dominant language makes it difficult for
speakers of indigenous languages to become literate
• Dual naming develops respect and awareness
• Uniqueness – endangered languages promote community cohesion
• They reflect attitudes to the social and natural worlds
• They are the storehouse of a community’s cultural, intellectual, and
artistic life
• Loss of languages affects us all – we lose ways of seeing the world
• Making physical records is maybe all that linguists can do
