Should linguists let endangered languages die?

[Margaret Florey]

Dear RNLDers,

The World Affairs Journal has recently published an article by John
McWhorter on "The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English" in
which he questions whether "it would be inherently evil if there were
not 6,000 spoken languages but one". You can read the article here
<http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Fall/full-McWhorter-Fall-2009.html>.

The New York Times Week in Review has now taken up the article in its
"Idea of the Day" section with a blog headed "Why Save Dying
Languages?"<http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/why-save-dying-languages/>.

You might like to take this opportunity to post a response on the blog.

best wishes,
Margaret Florey