Languages can go extinct when they are not passed to younger generations and when people do not reinforce their use. People who speak endangered languages might also feel pressured to use more globalized languages with more speakers, encouraging them to abandon their little-known language in place of one that is understood by many. With an increase in "Englification," we miss out on the diversity in how ideas can be expressed and how people think, as well as access to untranslatable sayings and words. When a language dies, you lose a piece of history and culture; languages, many of which endure for centuries, are direct ties between the people of a community today and their ancestors from long ago. Languages also tell us a lot about that culture (for example, a language that has a more thorough classification system for different types of reindeer tells us that reindeer were important to that community), and its extinction would dismiss so many aspects/practices that were pinnacle to that community's survival.
Purely oral languages (and sign languages) are likely more prone to extinction because there is no way to understand how they were used without hearing/seeing someone use them in the present (whereas languages with writing can be referred to out of context of the time period). Languages that are endangered exist mostly in the memories of the elderly, who are among the remaining few who know how to use it. However, there is a sense of pride that draws people within the same language community together; it's really interesting how people who can speak these dying languages "own" these languages in a way that English speakers will never be able to own the English language, because that language is their property.
Languages can never be fully revived after they die without being recorded; even if the written structure is preserved and people try to speak it, use and intonation will change, and pronunciation might vary. However, languages that are about to become extinct can be preserved through digital recordings, which can be shared with others. Revival of languages that have been recorded and/or are about to become extinct might be easier if the language is similar to other existing languages. Other methods, such as immersion, can also promote the revival of a language (linguists who immerse themselves this way can spread this language and understand how the language is constructed/used).
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