The death of any language has to be lamented. Language is one of the ways in which humans express themselves and each language is unique. The death of a language is the death of a unique mode of human expression.

To employ a medical term I am not sure that a lot can be achieved by putting endangered languages on a life support machine. The really important thing though is not to impose solutions from outside but to find out what the speakers want. The loss of a language may be accompanied by other changes such as moving from a remote village to a large city, eating different food, wearing different clothes and abandoning local customs. Young people in particular will want to fit in. They may equate the language of their grandparents with the sort of life their parents wanted to change for what they perceived to be a better one. No one with a liberal disposition will tell someone what they should wear or eat, but can be over keen on encouraging them to keep in touch with their "culture" within which they include language. It is all too easy for culture to become an instrument of oppression.

It is interesting to note that liberal opinion has in fact shifted 180 degrees over the last few hundred years. When most of South America was part of the Spanish Empire the authorities, and in particular the Church, took the view that the indigenous peoples should stick to their own languages to discourage them from getting too organised on a large scale. In fact, significant resources were put into studying the indigenous languages. With the coming of independence the view was that if you could not speak Spanish you were disenfranchised. Accordingly Spanish was encouraged. The idea was no doubt picked up from the French Revolution. The effects of the French Revolution in France with respect to encouraging French are still evident today. Withing living memory children who spoke local languages were actively discouraged from using them in school. Encouraging a national langauge does not have to involve discouraging a local language, but in practice that is what often happens.

There are many reasons for languages being lost, but it is not really helpful to dwell on them. The fact that a language has been actively suppressed or heavily discouraged is not really a good reason on its own to revive or preserve it. The sole criterion must be whether the speakers of the language (and not those who purport to represent them) want to keep it. Governments should be no more than facilitators if a community wants to preserve its language. Whilst a balance needs to be kept between national and local languages, no authority should be encouraging one at the expense of the other. If we are to live in a world where diversity is celebrated language must be included. However, whilst language may for some be an important part of who they are, no language should become a badge of identity.

I cannot see languages like Croatian disappearing anytime soon nor do I see any need for them to do so.