Should We Care When a Language Dies?

By some estimates, approximately half of all languages currently alive on Earth will become extinct during this century. That?s somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000-plus tongues, many spoken by only tens or hundreds of people. But what exactly do we lose when a language dies without ever having been documented? Is it equivalent to, say, species extinction? Listen as Bob Garfield and I discuss the race to preserve what is arguably humanity?s most impressive achievement.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b1c124eaa1335f5b95accd6db0321976

chomp national enquirer kate gosselin helicopter crash matt jones whitney houston in casket photo resolute