I remember for a few weeks in my early graduate student days, lost in the library and milling about the stacks, I came upon a large series of books on lesser known-dying out languages in the British Isles. There were books on Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Manx, Breton, Cornish, and probably some others I have forgotten. Intrigued, I flipped through a few and even brought several home to see if I could learn something. I failed to learn anything actually because I was much too busy with my doctoral studies and my attention wandered. Looking back, I wonder what the motivation was -- some genealogical longing for languages of my ancestors, spiteful learning and use of something dead and dying? I still am not sure, but the idea still intrigues me.

That said, the NY Times had an interesting article by Jack Hitt yesterday on dying languages, showing "both sides" of the debate. The predictable "save the languages" movement crowds around academia (mostly graduate schools) and government, and works through organizations like the Endangered Language Fund and (no joke, although it does sound rather Monty Pythonish-Ministry of Silly Walks) the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. The less predictable "let them die out" group is here and there, mostly found around an idea rather than an institution: those in favor of a global economy of free trade, open borders, and liberal capitalism. Their mantra seems to be, if you can't survive in the marketplace (of goods, ideas, or languages) then what good are you?

This is not a simple good guy-bad guy issue, with poor old farming folk clinging on to the old ways facing down heartless globocrats intent on making the world a homogenized cheeseburger. Yes, there is something sad and unfortunate (maybe even unnecessary and hence a human failure rather than a natural trend) about an old language dying out. But as is pointed out, resistence to globalization and "big concerns" can be quite successful, as reactions inevitably occur seeking out quality, oddity, and uniqueness rather than simply quantity, predictability, and cheapness. Compare the types and varieties of beers Americans were drinking 20 years ago to the proliferation of micro-brews today; or the number of gourmet coffee shops people haunt rather than brew their 'joe from a can.

In an odd way, the same reaction occurs in linguistics. Hitt notes:

The very success of English as a global language is prompting a revival of ancestral tongues. Compared to the die-off now in progress, it's a drop in the bucket. Still, many native American languages have reacted against these near-death experiences. The Miami in Oklahoma and the Mohawk straddling the Canadian border have full-scale programs for language revival. Native Hawaiian, also written off only a few decades ago, has 18 schools teaching a new generation in the original language of the islands ... Language revival as a means of identity politics may well be the way of the future. The big fight in linguistics over the past two decades has been about English First. But first is no longer the question. Now the question is, What will be your second language? In America, the drift in high-school curriculums has always been toward a second dominant language -- French, Spanish, German, maybe Chinese if you're a rebel. But what if the second language could be that of your ancestors?

That possibility is already proving to be quite popular with many people. As their initiatives succeed and become more visible, they will drive into the open a question for English-speaking Americans, the owner-operators of the dominant linguistic ecosystem. Do we want to dwell in a society that encourages linguistic revival and cultural diversity, knowing that with it may come a lot of self-righteous minority-pitying? Or, shall we just sit contentedly amid a huge cultural die-off, harrumphing like some drunk uncle at the family reunion angrily spilling his beer and growling, ''Let 'em die''? Keep in mind that if the actuarial tables are correct, it means that once the languages start to die off in earnest, there will be a ''death of the last speaker'' article in the papers, on average, every 12 days.

Now, identity politics gives me the creeps, but when thought of in terms of language, it has some appeal. After all, this is a politics based firmly on an appreciation of the past (this will always play well with me), and if we begin a more concerted apprecation of past language, can an appreciation for values (which language transmits) be far behind? Of course, this carries with it the equal danger that restoration of older languages will ignite a wave of "why I hate English and English-speaking people." Still, it holds some appeal for me, I must admit. As Hitt rightly notes, Israel is the model:

For more than two millenniums, Hebrew was found almost exclusively in Scripture and rabbinical writings. Its retreat was nearly complete -- out of the public square, into the house and finally into the scrolls of the Torah. But the early pioneers of what would become Israel faced a politically charged question: which of their languages should dominate? Ashkenazi Yiddish? Russian? German? Sephardic Ladino? The commonly agreed-upon answer was supplied by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the Jewish linguist who used the stiff, formal language of the Bible to conjure into existence a modern version -- now the main language of 3.6 million people. (Of course, Hebrew's comeback has helped drive Yiddish and Ladino into ''endangered'' status.)

It can be done, it need not be an exercise in PC self-loathing, and it might make people think a little more about the past. If you are interested, here are a few links that struck my fancy:

A Course in Welsh
Gaelic Lessons Online (both Scots and Irish Gaelic)
Manx Gaelic
The Cornish Languages Online
Kervarker: Breton Language