On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:41:17 +0100, Padraig Breathnach
wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

Yes there is a point. For example, it can aid the understanding of the
human psyche.

Only if there is an active community speaking it.

No. All you need is people capable of understanding it, and a
reasonable repository of instances of authentic usage.

That's not saving a language; it takes a sort of critical mass of
native speakers to save a language. Unless they are native
speakers they will not truly understand the language anymore than
I could truly understand German, no matter how fluent I became.

Thousands of languages have died out over the millenia, from well
before the invention of writing, even, and only a few are of any
particular improtance today. Etruscan would be nice to know.

They say the island of New Guinea has hundreds of languages, but,
frankly, it really won't make a bit of difference if some of them
die out because the native speakers find English or some form
Asian language much more useful.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *