Evaluating the Benefits of State-Led Language Preservation Efforts

Advocates of government-led efforts to preserve endangered languages point to a range of benefits that are, allegedly, thereby fostered. In this article, I analyse six such arguments for preserving endangered languages, with the aim of ascertaining whether language preservation can be expected to help secure the various putative benefits. I evaluate, in turn, the claims that governments should strive to preserve languages because doing so will help to: maintain the unique worldviews of endangered linguistic groups; save scientific or cultural knowledge from being lost; preserve the aesthetic value that a diversity of languages represents; ensure minority language speakers are secure in their ability to connect emotionally with members of subsequent generations; secure for all citizens the cultural preconditions of autonomy; or resolve collective action problems. I conclude that the benefits of preserving endangered languages are considerably more modest, and more speculative, than is alleged by proponents of these preservationist arguments.