When a language dies, a number of things happen as a result.
First of all, the people the language belonged to lose their mother tongue. This, in turn, leads to the loss of contact with the culture that spoke the language. I am a firm believer that language gives great insight into culture and vice versa, which means that by letting a language die, we close an important window into that culture.
What is even worse, in time, we may even lose memory of the culture. Potentially not all languages and cultures in the world have been documented, which means if one of them were to go extinct right now, with no record of it, the culture would die with it.
This is a dangerous game because, if a language dies and there are not sufficient records of its structure and the culture surrounding it, it is extremely difficult, if possible at all to revive it.
That is why linguists should do what they can to immerse themselves in the cultures, learn and record as much as they can, and help teach the language to others to spread the knowledge.
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