My grandfather was a Professor of Linguistics and traveled through the world recording languages, trying to write them down before they disappeared. He could speak over 14 languages. He created the first dictionary for an African tribal language (the name of which escapes me at the moment). He was my idol. We need more people like this to at least record languages even if they cannot be saved from dying out. The cultural information contained within a language is immense and the world would be a pretty boring place without the diversity of many languages.