Survival of the Fittest?

Although it’s not a good thing that all these languages are rapidly dying out, from what I have read it doesn’t seem so awful either. Except for the case in eastern Siberia where the government forced speakers of minority languages to use the national and regional languages, most of these languages are dying out because the younger generation no longer seems to need them. A fine example of this is the sole speaker of the Amurdag language in Australia who strained to recall what little he knew from his father. Yet, he obviously was able to communicate just fine with the people interviewing him so the loss of his native tongue wasn’t detrimental.

So the big question is why are all these languages dying out? I believe that for the most part, aside for cultural appreciation, these small languages are unnecessary and the younger generation would rather spend their time conversing in a more popular and widespread dialect. If they really felt that the language of their ancestors was really important, I’m sure that they would have taken the time to learn it. Now it is sad that all these languages are being lost because they would be very interesting to study. However, times change and people have to change with them in order to keep up with the world. If the younger generation feels that keeping an ancient language alive is not worth it, who are we to blame them? It’s their decision. But like I mentioned earlier, if people are being forced to drop their language in favor of a more popular one, then that is just wrong.