I also think that in any kind of complex system, monocultures are fragile.
This is a valid point. But the world is far from a monoculture. Even if all currently endangered languages die out, we will have plenty of cultures left.
If the world ends up with less than, say, 100 languages, then I agree it starts to make sense to preserve them. As it stands now, I think we have more than enough cultural diversity, and keeping tiny minority languages and cultures alive is not worth the opportunity cost.
There’s truth to that for sure. The smaller and more isolated cultures have more variability, but cost more to try to preserve, and I don’t have a good model to evaluate that balance.
This is a valid point. But the world is far from a monoculture. Even if all currently endangered languages die out, we will have plenty of cultures left.
If the world ends up with less than, say, 100 languages, then I agree it starts to make sense to preserve them. As it stands now, I think we have more than enough cultural diversity, and keeping tiny minority languages and cultures alive is not worth the opportunity cost.
There’s truth to that for sure. The smaller and more isolated cultures have more variability, but cost more to try to preserve, and I don’t have a good model to evaluate that balance.