As the world economy becomes more integrated there is nothing unusual that languages across the world have been disappearing steadily. According estimates there are approximately
6 000 languages in the word and over half of them will be extinct within the next 100 years. That means there is a language dying out somewhere in the word every two weeks (Crystal 2002). For this reason saving endangered languages is now attracting greater attention from academics, politicians, institutions and organisations worldwide. The aim of this essay is to consider some advantages and disadvantages of saving minority languages.
The main advantage of saving minority languages is that it allows preserving the intellectual and cultural diversity of the planet. The community itself must want to save its language because every language is a part of the human culture and story. The culture of which it is a part must need to have a respect for minority languages. There needs to be founding, to support courses and materials. By saving endangered languages people can increase their awareness of the history of world (Crystal 2002). For these reasons it is important to document endangered languages and preserve them.
Another important advantage of language revitalisation is that it leads people to speak two or more languages and may be useful in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. Jared Diamond, a famous physiologist believes that thinking and talking bilingually are the best brain exercise for maintaining brain strength and more effective than playing bridge or solving puzzles because of the sustained effort involved (Matthews 2010). Moreover recent research shows that bilingualism cuts the frequency of Alzheimer's disease symptoms nearly in half (Matthews 2010). In this way saving minority languages has big advantages for both individuals and groups.
However saving minority languages can be costly and takes a long period of time. It is include costs for getting linguistics into...